In honor of the state’s 375th anniversary, fees will be waived for the weekend of May 22 and 23rd [...]]]> Care to experience the best of Mother Nature in Connecticut?  For Free?  Come to any of these State Parks where you can hike, swim and enjoy nature’s bounty without having to pay a penny.

In honor of the state’s 375th anniversary, fees will be waived for the weekend of May 22 and 23rd at the state parks where pre-season parking fees are now being charged:

Chatfield Hollow State Park, Killingworth
Silver Sands State Park, Milford
Hammonasset Beach State Park, Madison
Sherwood Island State Park, Westport
Rocky Neck State Park, East Lyme
Harkness Memorial State Park, Waterford
Admission will also be free at the Dinosaur State Park exhibit center, Rocky Hill.

Out-of towners have to pony up big bucks to get into the marina/beach/playground/woodlands that is Byram Park.  Drenched in coastal charm – little islands, mansion backyards spilling into coves, the docks and moorings – it triggered powerful memories when I drove past the entrance gate (vacant for the winter).  My family used to keep a South Coast [...]]]>

Out-of towners have to pony up big bucks to get into the marina/beach/playground/woodlands that is Byram Park.  Drenched in coastal charm – little islands, mansion backyards spilling into coves, the docks and moorings – it triggered powerful memories when I drove past the entrance gate (vacant for the winter).  My family used to keep a South Coast 23 at one of those moorings – and I recall the pull of the oars getting out there from docks now stacked near the hill that my friends and I would roll down.  I still feel the vertigo it engendered.  The Byram Park beach did not have the glamour of ferry travel that Island Beach did, but it was close and though probably disgustingly dirty in the 1960′s, perfect for building sand castles.  Now clean, and still small, it’s a great town asset in the summer and a idyllic winter treasure.

All those years ago, we’d inhale the aroma of fresh-baked bread from the Arnold Bakery next door (just under the railroad bridge).  Now -it’s no longer Arnold, but still a bakery called, of all things, “Bimbo Bakeries” which seems to include Thomas’s and Friehoffers (whose trucks were in the loading bay).  Bimbo?   It’s just difficult to keep a straight face when they claim to be “the most trusted name in bakeries.” But maybe that’s just my inner bimbo laughing.