Old Saybrook.

84, 95, and 91 are all Mad Max hellscapes, but Rt 9 is actually a really easy drive. 45 minutes between West Hartford and Old Saybrook if she can time it to avoid rush hour in Middletown, 1 hour if she can't. From Old Saybrook you can drive to New Haven in about 35 minutes for a direct train, or take the train from Old Saybrook to New Haven then transfer. If your employer will pay for both legs of the train ticket, that's a big savings. Old Saybrook train station parking area even has pretty good pizza or chinese you can pick up on the way home, or excellent coffee & breakfast for the morning commute.

I used to live walking distance from the HS and the church, perfectly safe areas. Mainly opportunistic crimes, people looking for cars left unlocked at night. Install motion activated outdoor lights and keep your house and car locked Most of the real crime is on the turnpike. Lots of families, lots of people riding bikes and walking dogs.

I'd rather see pre-existing hardscape be converted before we plow down even more wild scaping. Even narrow bands of wildflowers along a highway can be incredibly beneficial for native and migratory fauna and pollinators. Crystal Mall in Waterford and the Westbrook Outlet are both essentially dead. Instead of courting amazon to convert them into megawarehouses, could they be renovated into housing?

Cooler summer, warmer winter. Just slightly less bipolar than the rest of CT weather. Also, snow melts a lot faster due to the salt air. Amazing sunsets become kinda commonplace. It is always windy!!!! 95 and Rt 1 in "the season" (late May through mid September) are fucking miserable; you learn to shop / bank / etc. mid-week to avoid traveling on the weekends. Also, in some beach towns, lots of restaurants, shops, even your own neighbors are only around for "the season," and fall through early spring it can feel like a bit of a ghost town.

Counterpoint: hey Trumpers, go to NYC and throw a fit! DefEnD FrEedOm or whatever bullshit your tapioca brain wants to do. Every way in and out of NYC has cameras and license plate readers. Go ahead, get arrested and jailed for your Messiah. The world will be better off without you.

Our Thames River is NOT pronounced like your Thames River. That said, the bridge over it will be a construction delay for the next couple of years (was just awarded a big federal grant to repair) so I'd recommend living on the same side of the bridge that you work on.

Picture an upside-down capital "T." The central north / south corridor and the entire coast east to west is where you'll find a house that is absolutely not more than 25 minutes to every amenity you could ever want. The northeast and northwest are more rural and lack some of the infrastructure and conveniences you might want.

In CT you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a pre- Revolution home, and we still have quite a few from the late 1600's. If you aren't a very good craftsman, any work you do on an older home might open a can of worms that will cost thousands to fix. A friend wanted to add an electrical outlet. Opened up a bit of wall and found old corn cobs had been used as insulation. Job took longer than expected, and old corn cobs sucked up the humidity and began to rot. Had to open up the entire wall to remove old "insulation" and redo everything. A new plug ended up being a major renovation.

Kitch in Mystic at Old Mystic Village or Cookshop Plus in West Hartford Center

I feel sorry for that poor dead horse. It just keeps getting beaten and beaten.

Snow on the beach? Weird. . . but fuckin' beautiful.

Fromage is the first, last, and only answer to this question. Best in the state for selection and knowledge. Ask for the owner, she will steer you right.

Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg which roughly translates from the Nipmuk as "you fish on your side and I fish on my side and nobody fishes in the middle."

Black Diamond Body Piercing in West Hartford. Absolutely the best.

If you have kids, and edibles, don't have the kinds of edibles that look like candy. . . because kids will ALWAYS find the candy you thought you hid.

Protectors of Animals in East Hartford does a low cost spay / neuter clinic, as does the Fox Memorial Clinic at the CT Humane Society in Newington. Both book up fast so call now for a February appt. DO NOT USE Connecticut Veterinary Center in West Hartford near Flatbush and New Park.

In New Hartford in the northwest hills of CT

Autoworks of Westerville, the best around. They will do all the insurance haggling for you and your car will be as good as new.

Expanding foam insulation in any doorway / window / basement cracks, draft blockers (aka rolled up towels) at the bottom of all exterior doors, and plastic film insulation on all the windows. Not cling film stuck to the window, but a perimeter around the window frame of double sided tape and then a large sheet of clear plastic stick to it and shrunk with a hair dryer until it is tight. Doing these each winter added 5° to the house without any fuel use.

If your friend is not comfortable touching them, then I assume they would be uncomfortable putting them in the car to take somewhere. As they should be! If you can't verify a gun is unloaded, ALWAYS assume it is. If your friend calls the local police and just explains the situation, and that it is unknown if the guns are loaded or not, a patrol officer will come by to secure the guns for your friend. What to eventually do with them is a separate question. Nobody should feel unsafe in their own home.

West Hartford, Avon, Simsbury, Lyme . . those are all "small m" millionaires. Whoever is answering with those towns doesn't truly understand the monumental wealth gap between working class / middle class / upper middle class, and the ultra-wealthy. A blue-collar worker living paycheck to paycheck has FAR more in common with a single-digit millionaire than that millionaire has in common with the Greenwich billionaire crowd.

Connecticut 's dangle - those 5 or 6 towns are among the highest concentrations on wealth on. the. planet. earth.

Between state govt. buildings, federal govt. buildings, churches, schools, etc. SOOOOO much of the actual real estate in Hartford is non taxable. Move the highway exchanges and / or bury the highways to create more developable land. More multi-family houses, and small apartment buildings. Also, schools are old and dilapidated. A huge % of the money spent on each school is just spent on bandaids to fix major structural problems. Stop wasting money on repairs, and just build new.

Like everyone says, mow them up. After the final mow, anything that comes down gets piled onto my veggie beds, or blown into my flower borders — and there it stays all winter long, insulating my plants and giving a home to beneficial insects. I'm mid spring, I rake everything out onto the lawn, spread it out, and mow it then.

Composted leaf mulch is incredibly good for your lawn, flower beds, veggie beds, etc. Is it so Ph neutral (very, very slightly acidic) that it doesn't even injure seedlings. You can grow seeds in a mix of leaf compost and potting soil. It loosens up compacted soil improving soil structure and drainage. I've never put any chemicals in my lawn, always mulch-mow my leaves, and my gardens are fantastic.

Love real trees, used to always cut one fresh each year. Unfortunately, my kid and dog are allergic.

Fake tree with the "scenticles" (icicle shaped green things) from Yankee Candle smell pretty close to authentic.

Never been, but I've also never seen the parking lot empty, so that's a good sign.