Our first day off

May 30 – We had the day off today so once we had breakfast and cleaned up a bit we headed

My first guests

out for the day.  It was a GREAT day!  As soon as I got up I looked out the front window and had my first hummingbird.  He was shiny green and then another one came, with a white neck stripe and red throat.  I was very excited and it was the perfect start to my day.

The weather warmed up after another cool night and we headed into Willimantic to visit the Windham Textile & History Museum.  It’s only 14 miles from us and opened at 10.  As we walked in we heard a guy telling his group he was taking them on the tour shortly.  We didn’t know they did tours but asked if we could join them and he was giving a special tour but since there were only 4 people he said sure.  We were very lucky as he was extremely knowledgeable about the town

One of the mill buildings and the
Willimantic River power source

as well as the history of the Mill.  The original buildings were built primarily from local granite and later brick factories were added but only the granite ones remain.  Two are now all apartments and the others have business offices on the first floor and the other floors will be converted to apartments.  There were over 1,000 mills in CT prior to the Civil War, before the invention of electricity.  Water power from the many

Original Company Store
for the mill, now part of the
Museum

rivers that had long drops in a short space that created power to run the machinery.  The buildings were built long and narrow with lots of big windows to allow enough natural light in for the workers to see.  They originally worked from dawn until dusk.  This particular mill started as the American Linen Company where they used cotton from the south and flax from Europe.  During WWII they could no longer get flax so changed to making cotton thread, then experimented with different synthetic fibers to make seat belts in cars.  Once electricity use spread and factories opened in the south to avoid shipping north the number of factories decreased rapidly.  This one closed in 1985. 

After the tour we were starved so headed to the University of Connecticut Campus where we had a good lunch in a local bar and eatery.  I had a chef salad and Bill went a little overboard with buffalo chicken quesadilla.  Then we checked out some stores still looking for things for the RV.  Found a wall clock the right size but no rug, silverware tray or drain dish.  Bill found a shirt.  We went to the 5:00 movie “A Million Ways to Die in the West”.  We were early so glad we had our books.  The movie was funny but so dumb.  Bill cackled his way through it.  Not one I’d EVER watch again.

Ribbits

On the way home we stopped at “Ribbits" for dinner.  Nice little place, generous servings and pretty good food for the price.  The theme is frogs so I liked it.  I had liver with onions, sweet potato and broccoli with a salad.  Only ate half so my dinner tomorrow just needs reheated.  Bill had meatloaf, slaw, broccoli and salad so he was better.  We work 5 – 9 tomorrow evening so this had to be our date night.  Turned into date day but we had a nice time and got to check out some more places.  Eventually we will find our way around.