The campground is not far from Groton Connecticut, home of the Electric Boat Company (famous for their submarines) and the US Navy’s New London Submariner Training base. Adjacent to these two is the U.S. Navy Submarine Force Museum and the historic Nautilus (free entry). Unfortunately, the SSN Nautilus has just finished a major maintenance cycle and was still being cleaned up, so it was not open for tours. The Nautilus is the first nuclear power submarine and served in the US Navy from 1953 until 1980. She was the first submarine to reach the north pole submerged and the first to navigate under the ice from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The museum contained loads of information on the evolution of the US Navy submarine fleet, from the Turtle in the Revolutionary war to the latest Virginia Class Fast Attack boats. We spent about 3 hours working our way through all the exhibits including a very moving section on submariners that had been awarded the Medal of Honor. A brief visit to the gift shop yielded some more Christmas gifts. On our way back to the Wanderer, we stopped at the Chamard Vineyards (our 14th state for wine tasting). These wines were much more to our tastes and we thoroughly enjoyed the wine. So much, we stayed for dinner as well. They had a nice selection of dry red wines, several bottles of which went home with us. The grounds were beautiful as well.
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| Entrance Sign |
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| Submarine Force Museum |
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| Hand Powered Revolutionary War Turtle Submarine |
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| SSN Nautilus |
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| Chamard Vineyard Entrance Sign |
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| Chamard Vineyard Grounds |
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| The Wine |
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| The Sail and rudder of the NR-1 nuclear powered research submarine |
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