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This boulder in Mystic, Conn. was
dropped by ice sheets that covered the state during the last glacial
period.
Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.
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We just happened to be heading in the
direction of the erratic.
My wife, Valeria, and I were driving to
Mystic, Conn. for the weekend to celebrate our third anniversary. I
had suggested the destination because I knew that Mystic was one of
the few spots in the state that understood how to create a successful
tourism industry while retaining its New England charm.
As we traced the coastline eastward in
the waning June afternoon, we listened to Friday's episode of WhereWe Live, a radio talk show about Connecticut based out of WNPR in
Hartford. Host John Dankosky was talking with experts about the
area's geology.
He brought photographer Frtiz Hoffmann
on. Hoffmann had traveled the country taking pictures of big rocks
for a story that appeared in the March issue of National Geographic.
These weren't just any big rocks,
though – they had been plopped down by the last group of glaciers
to cover much of the United States during the most recent Ice Age,
which ended around 13,000 years ago.
Hoffmann's pictures were of erratics –
huge boulders that looked like they had dropped into their
environment from the sky. The most famous of these are probably the
rocks in Central Park.
When the ice sheets slid southward to
cover the continent, they scooped up tremendous masses of earth. As
the ice receded, it left that material behind.
“You have a beautiful picture of one
(erratic) at the edge of a parking lot in Mystic, Connecticut,” we
heard Dankosky say.
From that point, I was determined to
track the boulder down.
That evening, we arrived at the
Steamboat Inn on Water Street. The inn hugs the dock that lines the
Mystic River and leads to the town's drawbridge. As we checked in, I
asked about the rock in the parking lot.
“Oh, I think I read something about
that,” the woman said. “I don't know where the rock is, but I
remember the picture showed the rock next to a Salvation Army bin.”
Once we were settled in our room, I
cracked open the laptop and searched for the National Geographic article. Sure enough, the rock was on the periphery of a parking lot.
The Salvation Army bin was there, too. So was an employee of the
mystery store, who was pushing a caravan of shopping carts across the
foreground of the shot.
I decided to search for Salvation Army
donation locations. No luck. The website only listed donation
centers.
I did a Google search for “boulder
erratic mystic, ct,” and found an article on the local Patch.com website about the
National Geographic feature. Another photo of the rock. The caption
said it could be found at the Big Y. I found the Big Y on a map of
Mystic.
The following afternoon, Valeria and I
took a detour from the traditional tourist destinations to visit the
boulder.
It was truly gigantic. The National
Geographic article had called it a leaverite, as in “leav 'er right
there,” a nickname given for boulders deemed by construction
workers as too cumbersome to bother moving. Indeed, a gap had been
left in the chain-link fence surrounding the property to accommodate
the erratic.
It was perhaps the most rewarding
moment of the trip. Tourist destinations like Olde Mistick Village
and Mystic Seaport capitalize on our desire to connect with the past
that has shaped our present. Yet contained within this random rock
largely ignored by passersby was a deeper history than any of the
tourists who flock to Mystic ever get to see.
Every stone has a story. You just have
to know where to look.
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Me standing in front of the erratic.
Photograph by Valeria
Garrido-Bisceglia.
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