East Haddam, Connecticut

Take Exit 7, off of Route 9, and you will be in East Haddam, Connecticut. Nestled in quiet scenery, the town is a hideaway for many.

Being from New York, my parents' house is in the suburbs. Although they live across the street from one school, around the corner from another and down the street from a hospital, it is by no means a neighborhood where you don't have to lock your doors, even in the middle of the day. My first car was vandalized several times, and both my father and boyfriend had IPods and cell phones stolen out of theirs. 

Moving to the middle of the woods has been an adjustment, to say the least. The nearest gas station is approximately 10 miles from our house. Thank God I quit smoking! In New York, I could walk to the nearest gas station in less than 10 minutes.


Additionally, the attractions in East Haddam leave something to be desired.

On my way to the entrance ramp to Route 9 (the way I take to both work in West Hartford and home to NY), I pass two gas stations, a yarn store, a Dunkin' Donuts, a market and Package Store (what us New Yorkers call a good old-fashioned liquor store), and little else except trees. In New York, my town has everything you could want within a 10-15 minute journey, from Wal-Mart to the mall to every fast food restaurant imaginable, and almost everything is open 24/7. 

In East Haddam, the Wal-Mart is 30 minutes away and the gas station closes at 10 pm. Sigh.

On the other hand, the scenery is quite spectacular.

East Haddam is home to the Goodspeed Opera House, where many talented people relocate to from surrounding areas to put on such productions as How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, and Annie Get Your Gun. 

We also live near the breathtaking Gillette Castle. 

The house my boyfriend and I live in is in the middle of nowhere. Our closest neighbor is a guy who is never short on beer, drunken ramblings, or bullets for his rifles. We can't see anyone else's house from our own. And the summer showed me more bugs than I've ever desired to see.

Yet I try to enjoy it. We won't live here forever; we are renting this house from friends who are temporarily away on military duty, and we often discuss trying to make it in the Big Apple. So, for now, we make the most of our solitude.