Salmon River – Connecticut State Forest

The other day was kind of rough. I spent a good amount of time on the internet getting phone numbers for “Pick Your Own” farms around the state and calling them. I was disappointed because so many of them didn’t have anything to pick. Many of the crops are running late because of the lousy weather we had in June. The local farms around here are booming, but the ones up North aren’t on schedule.

Since we wanted to just get out there, we decided to hop in the car for a cruise around some roads we have never been on. I had an idea, so off we went.

For the past year, I have been driving by a sign that says something like, “Connecticut Wine Tour” and never gave it much thought. I figured that since this sign would probably bring us somewhere neat, we would follow it.

Okay, so we jumped in the car and started driving. It was more of a sight seeing tour than anything else. We first passed the Easter Seals at Camp Hemlocks and did a quick drive through. Camp Hemlocks is “…the place where people of all ages with various disabilities, realize their dreams and strive to reach their highest potential.” It’s a pretty neat place. I liked the fact that they have a small lake that people can canoe and kayak on. We just drove through and left.

Onward and upward. Next, we came across the winery that I guess those wine tour signs were talking about. It’s called, “Priam Vineyard.” We drove up the driveway to find some growing grapes and a nice wine tasting building. I really wanted to go in, but didn’t have any cash on me. I looked at Laura and told her that we will put this one on the list to come back to…perhaps on the weekend. Oh, the disappointment. We drove back down the driveway and left.

We made a right out of the road and drove for only a mile or so and saw a sign for “Day Pond State Park in Colchester.” We decided to pull in the entrance to do a quick drive through. I have actually seen this park’s description a few times while looking for various state parks last Summer. I kind of always passed it by because I thought they just had a pond and that’s it. Honestly, I didn’t do too much digging into its writeup. Well, the park has more than a pond. There are some hiking trails as well. I wouldn’t say the trail system is more extensive than Gay City State Park, but they go for quite a distance. Of course, I may be wrong because I only gave the trail map a quick glance. Are you seeing a trend here?

We stopped the car and walked around for a few minutes and decided to continue on with our driving tour. I did have a lot of fun driving on the dirt road with the car. I am always trying to see how it handles in different environments.

After that, we pretty much thought the major sights were covered. We were driving down the road, heading back to where we came from when I saw a sign for “Salmon River – Connecticut State Forest.” Now, this was interesting. I was curious what the difference between and state park and a state forest was, so we pulled in. As far as I can tell, there isn’t much of a difference. We saw parking areas, picnic tables, walking trails…all the usual stuff.

Since I wanted to go for a walk and actually achieve something for the day, we found a parking spot and hopped out of the car. We walked towards the river and that is where the picture taking began.

There is a pretty neat trail that takes you down the river quite a bit. Along the way, we saw burned out camp fires, so there may be camping at this place, although we didn’t see any signs for camping. The sign out front also said the park, or “forest” closed at dusk. Hmmm. We walked a pretty good distance and then turned back.

Upon returning to the house, I did a little research on Google Earth to discover that this Salmon River runs all the way down to the Connecticut River. I think it would be pretty cool to tube down it. Getting back up would be an issue though.

Okay, let’s see some photos.