Main Street, Old Saybrook

I thought I pretty much had Old Saybrook figured out. Not that I go there all that often, but I knew roughly what box to put it in. (What, you don't mentally store towns in boxes?) Old Saybrook definitely belonged in the Madison/Guilford box. The "perfect New England town where everything is just so" box, the "seems snootier at first glance than it really is because it's so pretty" box, the "here be gambrel roofed 19th century houses and exclusive boutiques and tasteful yet winking decorative references to the sea."

But I'd never simply walked down Main Street and looked around. I'd parked there to go into a store or two, and admired the floral arrangements between the lanes while driving to the shoreline. But I'd never just wandered. And you can't really see places without wandering. And often when you wander, what you find is less perfect than what you see at faster speeds, and better.