As one of her pandemic projects, my mom has been slowly tackling the boxes of stuff to go through in the attic. (Similar to what I did with the basement.) Among the gems she found was a story I wrote at age eleven. It began with me eating chocolate chip cookies and cheez balls for breakfast and because of this, ruining our planned day trip. I thought that it would be fun to recreate this trip of sorts. I recently visited the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center in Mystic with dinner from Illiano’s Grill in Norwich. And this time to hope for better results!
In my short story, I woke up at my grandmother’s house and ate junk food for breakfast. After going to church with my parents, they had an afternoon trip planned for the family. It included a nature walk at Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center in Mystic, a trip to Mr. V’s Card Shop in Old Saybrook for baseball cards, and dinner at the Shoreline Restaurant in Guilford. To summarize, due to my poor choice of a balanced breakfast, my stomach hurt all day, leading us to miss out on dinner and my father threatening to take me to the E.R. Certainly in the story, my father was the bad guy as lines described him threatening to “slap me one.”
A Recreated Road Trip
I decided to skip on the cookies and the Cheez balls for breakfast, heck, I don’t know if they even make Cheez balls anymore! But I did take my family to the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center. This small natural center was perfect for my kids. They enjoyed looking at the stuffed animals, the live reptiles, and the meadow demonstration. The meadow exhibit is a simulated visit to a regional meadow at night–hearing all the sounds and identifying what is what. I enjoyed it so much that the following night I took my son to the meadow across from my parents’ house.
After the museum, we took a small walk along one of the trails that is part of the extensive trail system which includes this property, the Denison Homestead and the Coogan Farm. The walk took us by a pond and over a boardwalk. We were about to enter the meadow portion of the trail, but my son’s tolerance of the heat was waning. On the other side of the museum though, we spotted cages with owls that had been rescued and are no longer able to live in the wild. This was a hit with both kids.
Next Stop on this Backyard Road Trip redo
Well, Mr. V’s Card Shop no longer exists, so we couldn’t visit there as part of the recreated road trip. The Shoreline Restaurant, where I fondly recall eating King crab legs, is now the Shoreline Diner and Vegetarian Enclave. I didn’t see crab legs on the menu. Just as in the original story, we never made it here. Guilford is a good 45 minute drive from Mystic. Then the ride back to Norwich would have been even longer. My crew felt it wasn’t worth the drive.
Illiano’s Grill
I thought I was lost, that I couldn’t live up to my original plan of following my story. After reading it over again when we went back to Norwich, the end of the story had my parents taking out from the restaurant Patti-O close to their house. Our road trip was saved! Patti-O is long gone but since 1997, Illiano’s Grill has been located in the same spot. Illiano’s is an Italian restaurant located in Norwich. It serves family favorites such as pizza and pasta. Just as in the story I wrote at eleven years old, we never made it to the diner but had dinner from Illiano’s. Pizza and salad were on the menu and they did not disappoint. Unlike in the original story, I did not even have to beg to get a bite of the meal.
Reliving a childhood day trip was a lot of fun. And by the sound of the original, this was a much better time. No one even had to be threatened with a visit to the E.R.! Denison Pequotsepos was a hit with the kids. It’s a welcome respite from the touristy Mystic Aquarium and Olde Mistick Village nearby. Illiano’s was also a hit as the pizza was gobbled up as soon as it hit the dining room table.
