The 410-mile-long Connecticut River has been a part of our lives, as a couple, for 25 years and part of Russ’s life for- well, let’s just say, many more. Those who live along its banks and especially those with boats of all shapes and sizes who enjoy it all summer long can count their blessings that the river’s mouth is shallow; too shallow to have allowed for commercial development and traffic. The river offers recreational boating at its best- well, at least the southern part which is the area we know.

The other day I happened upon an exciting piece of news about the river.  Here is an excerpt from the e-article:

In riverfront ceremonies in Hartford Thursday, U. S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar designated the 410-mile-long Connecticut River as America’s first National Blueway, saying restoration and preservation efforts on the river were a model for other American rivers.

“Most people didn’t awake to the possibilities of the restoration of rivers and what they meant to the environment and to the economy and young people and health until very recently,” he told reporters at the conclusions of the ceremonies. “The people who live along the Connecticut watershed started waking up to this possibility half a century ago.”

The term blueway emerged in recent years in many states including Connecticut to describe canoe and kayak routes along rivers and other waterways, akin to greenways for hiking and bicycling.

The Connecticut is the first of what is to be a National Blueways System that is part of an Obama administration effort to promote a community-driven conservation and recreation agenda for coming years.

The 410-mile-long Connecticut already was a highly decorated waterway.

It is one of 14 federally designated American Heritage Rivers. The estuary at its mouth near Long Island Sound was named one of the Nature Conservancy’s Last Great Places as well as a globally significant wetland under the international Ramsar convention. The Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge, created in 1991 to encompass the river and all the land it drains, was the first of its kind in the U.S.

You may have guessed that these are “file” photos.

I’ve had a lot of time to kill so catching up on news and emails, reading – anything quiet- has been the name of the game since May 10.   I was the first to get sick. A few days after we’d made the rounds to get our mail, stock the fridge, stop at two storage places and enjoy a delicious dinner at Aspen, I came down with doozy of a cold.  My first in several years.  Do I thank the mild winter or the fact we haven’t had much exposure to bad germs lately?  Who knows.  Not to be left out of the fun, Russ starts his cold-like symptoms the day after Mother’s Day- phew that was close- I got the “you don’t have to cook today” treatment just in time. After days of wondering if Russ had a cold, the flu or something else and bouncing back and forth between feeling lousy and starting to feel better, he finally saw the Doc on May 23, who proclaimed, “strep and now bronchitis.”  Wow- whoda thunk?   He’s on day 4 of a 5 day antibiotic treatment and the cough just won’t go away. Needless to say, we’ve accomplished very little in the past two weeks. Our son returns from his study abroad semester Thursday night and I think I see his name on the boat project list to help us catch up. 🙂