Most great trips are more about the people than the place. The last week has been a good reminder of that. My youngest brother, Donald, and his wife, Theresa, made the trip north from Virginia to spend a week with the family. It didn’t matter if it was a day lounging around the pool hunched over a chess board or moving furniture for our mother or even taking in one of the casino’s in the area, it was just fun to be back together again. Their buckets of common sense and Theresa’s infectious laugh made every day of the visit a treat.
One of our excursions this week was a return visit to Foxwoods Casino in rural eastern Connecticut. It is quite a sight to come upon the massive structures rising out of the hardwood forests. The MGM Grand is the first building to appear from east bound Route 2, followed by large hotels and Foxwoods. The complex also is home to a fine Native American museum and numerous smaller hotels and gaming facilities.
Six of us traveled to Foxwoods with our destination the Festival Buffet. I am not a gambler or fan of casinos in general, but the buffet is a nice destination. Reaching it requires a walk through the central aisles palatial lobby. Highly overpriced gift shops, lavishly decorated boutiques, and the amazing architecture of the place are free for the viewing. The bad economy and being the middle of the week resulted in much smaller crowds than I expected, but there are still plenty of opportunities for people watching. The area retirement homes must have experienced mass defections as their patients have flooded the main concourse. I doubt that the average welder has more bottles of oxygen than I saw whizzing around attached to motorized wheelchairs and scooters.
The buffet has something for everyone and a lot if you want it. The small crowd made us comfortable lingering over a long meal that everyone seemed to enjoy. Another guest offered to take a picture of our group, so thanks to her for the one posted here. We are all much prettier than we appear.
The second picture is a reflection of the good time. Family members will recognize the whole gang (Carol, Mom, Donald , Theresa, and Gloria. Theresa is in stitches from a risqué comment Gloria made about the endowments of the huge statue in the background. Fortunately the statue rotates so I don’t need to place a warning for adult content on the site. Actually, I can’t see what they were laughing about, but does it matter when you are having fun?
A few of the party ventured into the gambling portions of the facility and were successful in disposing of some cash. Slots are helpful at tasks like that – kind of revenue shredders.
The next day Don, a skilled auto mechanic, helped our brother Jim with some lingering problems with his Jeep pictured here. Don did a brake job and inspected and fixed a faulty bank of dashboard switches faster than he lost our second chess game.
We took a trip past what was our maternal grandfather’s farm in Woodstock. The old farmhouse is still standing (and occupied by a new family) but the barn is gone and the fields are a housing development. The new owners probably have no idea that my grandmother’s midnight blue Lincoln Continental is buried below their front lawn, but that's another story.
So, to my blog readers, if you are lucky enough to have relatives you like to hang out with, make some time to do so. Include friends. If your days of hard work and struggle have cut you off from old friends, make some new ones and hang out somewhere along the way.
David
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