Downtown Hartford Leg! Founders Bridge to Legislative Office Building Parking Garage

I continue to fall farther and farther behind with my posts.  Which I suppose is a direct effect of spending more time on the trails and less time on line!!  I think I'll need to do a great big post incorporating a bunch of connected legs when all is said and done and the Girl Child and I return to civilization (right now we are calling a tent "home"), but this is not the time for that! 

This was a 1.5 mile leg that I'd been looking forward to ever since we started this adventure -- the East Coast Greenway goes directly through and connects many of the major East Coast cities,  and THIS leg cuts right through the heart of our state capital -- Hartford, Connecticut!!  I finally found the right combination of weather, availability, and leg health the evening of Monday, August 15th to venture forth and explore what the trail has to offer our city.

We started out from The Map Man's office on East River Drive in East Hartford and followed the trail west across the Founders Bridge (above and in the next 3 photos).  We all enjoyed the sculptures and artistic details of the bridge itself, as well as the views up and down the river and of the city.

The trail emerges from the bridge on the top of Mortenson's Riverfront Plaza, and begins to wind its way past some of Hartford's most iconic buildings. Below, a view of the Old State House (partially obscured by trees).

The Hartford Club (above) and the Traveler's Tower (above and below). Fun fact, my father worked for his entire career for Traveler's, either in the tower itself or one of the connected buildings (depending on the year).

Above, Center Church/First Church, and below, the Wadsworth Antheneum

Above, the entrance to Bushnell Park, which we spent about half of tonight's trail time in, as the Greenway goes right through the middle of it.

Above, Clara meets Great, Great, Great (and maybe one more Great) Uncle Horace (or at least his statue) and reads about his accomplishments (below).  Fun fact, I got an A++ on my Health research paper in high school by submitting a biographical accounting of Uncle Horace's life, complete with a photo of this statue on the cover, so I've always been rather fond of him.

Above and Below, the famous Bushnell Park Carousel, which sadly isn't operational on Mondays.  I couldn't time everything perfectly!

Above, the Soldiers and Sailors Arch.

Below, enjoying the food trucks.

Making up for the lack of a carousel ride, we found a jazz concert happening in the park.  This part of our walk was very festive indeed!

Above and below, beautiful views of our State Capitol Building.

Above, end of the park, below, end of the line for this leg of the trail.  Time to hop in our car, waiting for us in the Legislative Office Building Garage. (Which is one of the reasons we needed to find an evening time for this leg -- this garage is full of Legislators and people with official business during the day.) Worked out great, everyone should get to experience Hartford on a lazy summer evening!

This was the final missing piece to connect our entire journey into one contiguous piece, so I thought I would celebrate that with a map of our travels thus far.  40.75 miles walked, 55.75 miles traversed, 2944.25 miles to go!