After nearly a week of watching the news, tracking the storm path, and preparing for Hurricane Irene to arrive on the Connecticut coast, arrive she did! Sometime around 5:30 AM we lost power and noticed that the storm was in full swing. The trees were whipping about crazily in the merciless onslaught and the house was being peppered with leaves and twigs. Thankfully, none of those big trees decided to come into the house to escape the storm!

After the tropical storm had passed (without power we didn't know it had been downgraded from a hurricane for a couple of days) we ventured out to take a look around. We were amazed by the sheer number of fallen trees! We were convinced it would be weeks before electricity was restored. For some reason, we actually got power back very late Sunday night (which I blogged about here), but much of the surrounding area didn't have power for around a week.

Here are photos of a few of the more interesting calling cards that Irene left for us in the areas in and around Old Lyme.