Connecticut Shores

We are way behind in getting travel posts published this summer because we're having too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

July 25, 2022

Our new Boondockers Welcome site is near the coast here in Niantic, Connecticut. So even though it is threatening rain today, we took a drive to see what we could find in this corner of the state. Our first stop was at the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton. (In case you are wondering how to pronounce that town's name, it rhymes with rotten.) Every military person that spends time inside a submarine must go through training here at the base in Groton, Connecticut.

Since it wasn't raining when we arrived, we first walked around the outdoor displays of old submarines. Many of these little submarines made Mark feel claustrophobic just standing beside them. He didn't like the idea of being inside one under the water for long periods of time.

Other outdoor displays just included the portion of larger ships that would be seen above the water when it lifted out of the depths.

Submarines were a major part of the war effort, and most were armed with surprisingly large guns.

This interesting circular display at the museum entrance helped us to wrap our minds around the size of these vessels. The inner circle is the size of a very early submarine--the USS Holland. The outer circle is the size of the much newer USS Ohio--SSBN 726. Only because we went to this museum do we know that SSBN stands for "Submersible Ship Ballistic Nuclear." When submarines became powered by nuclear energy, they also became able to complete much longer missions and could be much larger.

Inside the free museum, we watched the 45-minute film that answered many of our questions. We also enjoyed visiting with the docent on duty at the museum. He is a retired submariner, and he answered more of our questions. His longest mission under-water was 113 days. We asked him about how the submarine carried enough food for an entire crew for that amount of time. He explained that cans of food were stored on the floor of every room, and then covered with sheets of cardboard. As the cooks used the canned food, their living and working space actually got bigger because they weren't walking on all those cans. He also reported that it was slim-picking by the end of the mission when the canned food inventory got low. Besides getting first-hand knowledge about life on a submarine, we also got to play with the periscopes in the museum.

We walked beside a scaled model of the USS Nautilus SSBN class ship. We can throw around those acronyms now that we are educated submariners. Normally, a museum visit here would include walking inside the real Nautilus parked outside. But this large retired nuclear submarine is on leave right now. Every 20 years it is taken to the ship yard for maintenance, and it won't be back until later this year. We guess we'll have to come back to Groton another time to walk through the Nautilus.

Groton is an industrial city, and many of the businesses look like they are making military parts. Even though it is on the waterfront, it is not a touristy place. So we headed toward the ocean for more picturesque locations. We stopped in at the University of Connecticut at Avery Point to get a picture of their lighthouse on this rainy day.

From Avery Point, we could take a blurry picture of the New London Lighthouse far out in the water. It reminds us of the lovely river lighthouses we got to see up close on the Hudson River.

When we are on the coast, one of Denisa's favorite things to do is look for lighthouses. It takes us to unusual places that we wouldn't go to otherwise. This New London Harbor Lighthouse was particularly hard to picture because it is now in a residential area, attached to a private residence. We couldn't go out on the beach for a picture because it was a private beach. We also couldn't drive to the New London public beach, because they charge outsiders like us $30 to park. We couldn't go to the state park, because they charge out-of-staters $25 to enter. We've said it before--Connecticut does not share well with others.

We were almost giddy when we found a free parking place in the town of Niantic. This town actually allowed out-of-staters like us to take an evening walk next to the water on their boardwalk!

We weren't far down the boardwalk when we saw that the bridge that we had just driven over was opening.

It's always interesting to see a highway with a 90-degree angle. Now the waiting boats can travel into the Niantic harbor.

Inside the boardwalk, we could also take a sunset walk on this unmaintained beach.

We found sea shells among the sea weed on the beach. We have found so few shells on the Atlantic Ocean beaches, and we aren't familiar with these little shells. 

This coastline is very close to the Amtrak line that runs frequently through Niantic. Based on all the wires surrounding the track, we would say that this is an electric train. It runs from Washington DC to Boston, and is the most used line of the system.

We watched the sunset from the beach with another train going by. This part of Connecticut can be very expensive, but we are still finding places to go and things to do for free here on the Connecticut shores.