Or maybe it just wants to stomp you flat:

So you may remember a few entries back when I was talking about accomplishing things over the Fourth. I shall now proceed to tell you about them. There are bears. Really.

Originally, our plan for the weekend was pretty grueling: Sleeping Giant State Park on Friday, followed by museums on Saturday and the waterfront parks on Sunday. In thinking about this, we realized our legs had no such stamina, and decided to do Sleeping Giant a week early, which turned out to be wise, as it seems that Large Hills + Legs + No Exercise = Owowow.

College, folks. It makes your SMRT.

Anyway, I know what you really want is dinosaur pictures, so I’ll just shut up and show you some now.

Epic turtle turns out to be pretty epic, as it happens. To put it in perspective, I’m about the size of half or a third of his shell, so you could probably stick a couple of NBA players in front of him and it might cover him up. They just don’t make ‘em like they used to, etc.

The much smaller, somewhat happier looking turtle most likely wants to be your friend. Unlike Epic Turtle, who most likely starred in a Godzilla movie at some point.

Yes, this room is every single bit as impressive you might imagine.

I tried really hard to get Sarah to stand in front of the leaping raptor and look scared, but she wouldn’t do it. I think she just hasn’t seen enough Jurassic Park yet.

I told you there would be bears. Misfortunately, you cannot shake the paw of the standing one, nor can you watch as they randomly disembowel and eat people. You can, however, watch as they get their pictures taken with small children. Small children love bears. Small children also love dinosaurs. Sarah and I made very small child-like noises in this museum. I think you can see where this is going.

There were also Egyptians, but if you’re like us and went to European national museums who got to the looting while the looting was good, well, meh. I try not to hold it against the Peabody Museum, because it’s a really cool place otherwise. Just the right size to get through in a single trip, and everything is neat.

We also tried to go to the New Haven Historical Society museum, but they were shut and didn’t tell anybody. Oops. Instead we went to the train station. I wanted to go up to the balcony, but we couldn’t find a way up there. It makes me very sad. But at least I got to see the dinosaurs.

Although I had to drive up Whitney to get there, and apparently they ripped the surface off of it and didn’t tell anybody. Do you know how fun driving like a mile at 15 MPH on unsurfaced asphalt dodging randomly placed manhole covers is? Yeah, it’s a party.

So that was Friday. Saturday, we went down to the waterfront, where there is an old Revolutionary War fort called Black Rock Fort that got subsumed into a Civil War fort called Fort Nathan Hale which is now a park. Somewhat appropriately it’s smack between the Coast Guard station and the Naval Reserve depot.

It’s also where that picture with the flags comes from. It’s all very pretty.

They also have a drawbridge. And a moat. And berms, although most of the buildings are now very very ruined and overgrown:

At one point there were fairly large buildings there. Now it’s back to being marshland.

Obligatory Girl In Front Of Nice Natural And Man-Made Scenery, Thus Combining All Aspects of Human And Natural Beauty In This One Awesome Photograph Shot.

The actual fort is a pretty tiny affair, which I suspect is rather undersized, because if you actual had 18 guys and some cannon like they did you wouldn’t all FIT in the thing, which I understand is a problem. On the other hand, when the British showed up in New Haven, they did surrender, so maybe. Also, if the treated lumber didn’t give it away, that’s the 1976 version, not the 1776 version, although there IS a nice random Revolutionary-era cannon up there.

That done, we were going to down to the beach, but ’twas a foolish thought, because on a nice Fourth of July, where do you think everybody and their brother, cousin, dog, cat, and goldfish went?

If your answer was “the beach!” you don’t get any points, because duh. So we drove through and went home.

Well, ok. We stopped at Yale first. And had ice cream. And watched Asian tourists cavort in fountains. Did I mention the ice cream?

Yes, Yale looks like this. It’s very nice.

On the larger blog note, you can expect bloggage for the next while to consist of pretty pictures, since I’ve had…one? weekend in the last month where I haven’t been out and about in New England, enjoying the lack of ridiculous humidity and heat. I assure you that this idea seems much more strange to me than it must to you, given previous utterances on the subject.

In any case, back in June Sarah and I drove up to Sleeping Giant State Park, which is one of 3-4 in the immediate New Haven area. Hiked up to the top and generally enjoyed the day. I think the trees more or less speak for themselves, so I’ll just shut up and let the pictures talk:

Place used to be a quarry, you understand.

Not sure what’s with that, but it’s cool.

You may have recieved some WPA help in the 1930s when…

I won’t give you the full panorama, but the view’s pretty nice.

Because we must always have ridiculousness. I’m really not sure why I’m semi-reprising the cover shot from Platoon. Maybe I just like making fun of myself on the Internet.