Destinations

There are many reasons to visit the Connecticut River. Besides a new infrastructure grant that supports marinas, the river is a beautiful location with a lot to offer to boaters.

I fell under the spell of the Norwalk Islands early in life. My first dinghy, first fish, first outboard, first stranding, first (and only) dismasting and first island getaway — a camp that would have made Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn green with envy — all occurred in that enticing little archipelago.

George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson walk into a bar … No, it’s not the beginning of a joke. These three Founding Fathers actually hung out in Annapolis, Maryland, on occasion.

The history of America’s lighthouses is wondrously wide ranging. It is about the farsighted colonies that built the first lighthouses on the East Coast to welcome commerce to their shores, embracing the founding of the nation and its dramatic expansion across the continent.