Weekend in Rhode Island ... and Mystic, Conn.

Ice cream and a view ... is there any better way to end a weekend getaway?

We had seen everything we wanted to see in Providence and done everything we wanted to do, but we certainly couldn't waste our holiday by going straight home. Instead, we decided on an impromptu stop in Mystic, Conn.

Everything I knew about the village comes from the movie "Mystic Pizza," which was actually filmed in the area. Truth be told, I still don't know too much more. It was so hot that we mostly saw Mystic from the comfort of our air conditioned car.

We did make two stops, however. The first was for some so-so seafood -- clam fritters and clam chowder, neither of which seemed to have much of the namesake ingredient. We had counted on exploring the town by foot, but neither of us felt up to it. Instead, we decided to drive down the main street and make our way back to the interstate.

But then Paul spotted Drawbridge Ice Cream.

All weekend I had been saying I wanted to stop at a "real" ice cream parlor. Then, just as we were crossing a drawbridge over the Mystic River, this one appeared.

And just as we saw it, the car parked closest to the parlor pulled away. Obviously, a higher power was telling Paul to pull over and get me ice cream. And by a "higher power," I mean me.

We took our single-scoop waffle cones (blueberry ice cream for me, mint chocolate chip for Paul) to the shaded deck on the river and watched the afternoon pass us by.

We never did see the drawbridge go up.

But our sojourn to Mystic wasn't quite over. Can you really say you've been there without seeing the Mystic Pizza? Who knows if it really is "a slice of heaven," but it probably would have been better than those clam fritters.