A Connecticut Yankee road trip

The road to Hartford, CT — where Younger Daughter was checking out the University of Hartford in a college visit — took a short detour to New York recently because when I’m driving, we’re always looking for a ballgame somewhere along the route.

Actually, I had purchased tickets for a Yankees day game against the Seattle Mariners back in March when tickets first went on sale having no idea what direction life would be taking in July. Stopping in New York on the way to Hartford turned out to make sense from a travel standpoint in this instance.
Our seats in Yankee Stadium ended up being a few rows behind and a few seats over from where Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit landed in the leftfield bleachers a few weeks ago. The Yankees’ captain was the first Yankee to reach 3,000 career hits — not Ruth, not Gehrig, not DiMaggio, not Mantle. So Jeter’s accomplishment is a pretty big deal for a franchise that’s experienced a lot of pretty big deals in its existence.
While we didn’t see that type of history, we were there on a day when something of note did happen: the Mariners broke a 17-game losing streak by beating the Yankees that afternoon. I guess all the Mariners needed was for Younger Daughter and I to show up for a game. I’m sure the Yankees appreciated our role in their loss.
We got out of New York ahead of the evening rush hour — driving in New York is never easy no matter what time of the day it is — and got to Hartford in relatively uneventful fashion.

I say uneventful except for the traffic in Connecticut. I’ve never driven in that state where traffic just isn’t all gummed up for no apparent reason whatsoever. I expect traffic in Philly and New York. I do not expect it in Middleofnowhere, CT.
The University of Hartford tour kicked off Day 2 of the trip. Notable UHART graduates include the singer Dionne Warwick and Houston Astros retired first baseman Jeff Bagwell. It was a nice tour and a nice campus, but I’m trying to not exercise any undue influence on Younger Daughter’s choice of a college. My sense from her reaction is that UHART is not her No. 1 choice.
The highlight of the day for old Dad — considering that UHART costs about $43,000 a year to attend — was a visit to the much more affordable Mark Twain house in Hartford, which only costs $16 per person to tour.
Although no photos or video were allowed inside the home, it’s an absolutely beautiful place. As you undoubtedly know, Twain, the pen name for Samuel Langhorne Clemens, is considered the greatest American humorist of his age.
As a writer of substantially less note than Mr. Twain, I thought it was very cool to stand in the same room where Twain penned some of his greatest works — “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” “The Prince and the Pauper,” “Life on the Mississippi,” “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” Hopefully, a little of that karma rubbed off on me.
A couple of days that included visits to Yankee Stadium and the Mark Twain house, two iconic U.S. sites, and the most important aspect of all was that I got to spend some quality time with my daughter. And really, it doesn’t get any better than that.