Prologue

Written December 2007

Bob made a comment in early December 2007 that it must be time for us to go on another bed-and-breakfast overnight. I began thinking about locations in Connecticut that we hadn’t visited and, a day or so later, without my conscious cooperation, my brain presented an idea: We could pose a challenge to visit every town in Connecticut in one year, 2008.
We’re both Connecticut natives, but there are still parts of our state we have not seen. Now that we are really retired, let’s get to know our state better—like we vowed to do on our return from a year’s residence in North Carolina. When there, many people asked us what Connecticut autumns, geography, and sights were like, so on our return, we treated ourselves as tourists, at least before our lives became full of homeownership and parenting. Now we want to actually visit every town in our state.
Logistically, we will have to visit about half a town every day, or 3.25 towns per week. Since we live in northeast CT, and regularly travel there, local towns will be easy to check off. More distant towns ("distant" is relative, since most towns in CT can be reached from any other town in two hours or so) will require planning, to cover multiple towns in a day trip.
We set these ground rules for our challenge: • Multiple towns may be visited in one day. • “Visit” does not just mean “drive through.” We will need to do or see something that neither of us has done or done or seen in each town: * Stay in a bed and breakfast. * Eat at a restaurant. * Visit a museum or historic site.* Take a nature walk.* Shop in a store, etc. * Go to a concert or program. * Record our experiences.
Some towns may prove a challenge since we have already visited many over the years. And we will probably indulge our special interests. So now we’ll start to research what towns have to offer, acknowledging that making one stop only will yield minimal knowledge of a town’s character. But we have to be realistic! Bob found a list of towns and cities with links to their municipal sites. We will maintain an abbreviated list by town with dates visited and nature of activity in each, and a chronological, narrative journal with more details, observations, and expenditures. We will also maintain an idea list for each town. Are we ready?