Abby Epplett, Historian

During my trip to the Windsor area of Connecticut back in August 2025, I visited several historical places including: Connecticut Trolley Museum , East Windsor Historical Society , Northwest Park , Vintage Radio & Communications Museum , Windsor Historical Society , and quick history stops in Windsor, CT . Another stop on that trip was New England Air Museum (NEAM) in Windsor Locks, CT. This museum was extensive enough to warrant a pair of posts. Part 1 will cover the Military Hangar, New England Women in Aviation Exhibit, Kosciuszko Squadron Battle of Britain Exhibit, and some artifacts in the Civil Aviation Hangar. Part 2 debuting tomorrow will cover the rest of the airplanes in the Civil Aviation Hangar, the Space & Observation Mezzanine, the B-29 Hangar with the Tuskegee Airmen Exhibit, the Outside Aircraft Display, and tips for your visit.

I recently read The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, and the Creation of Europe in the Tenth Century by Paul Collins, published in 2013 by PublicAffairs . I read from the eBook version on the Libby app, which allowed me to make 1378 highlights in the book. I will only share a handful with you today. At nearly 500 pages in its print addition, and nearly 1500 in digital, this book is not for the faint of heart but rewarding for those interested in learning more about this century of the European Medieval Period, a time of violence and disorder after the fall of the Roman Empire and before the Roman Catholic Church dominated the government.

I had a history-packed, three-day trip to the Windsor, CT area back in August 2025, when I visited the Connecticut Trolley Museum , East Windsor Historical Society , Northwest Park , Vintage Radio & Communications Museum , and Windsor Historical Society . Between stops at amazing venues that exceeded expectation, I took a few quick history stops around Windsor, CT to see the usual small town New England sites, including historic buildings, memorials, a cemetery, and a classic New England church. This area, called Palisado Avenue Historic District , has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1987 .

During my trip to the Windsor, CT area back in August 2025, I visited many historical sites, including the Connecticut Trolley Museum , East Windsor Historical Society , and  Vintage Radio and Communication Museum . On the same trip, I spent several hours at Windsor Historical Society . This impressive small town museum enjoys excellent funding and has a well-trained, engaging staff, making this stop among the best historical society visits that I have experienced.

I recently read The Gene: An Intimate History written by Pulitzer-winning researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee and published by Simon & Schuster in 2016. Now celebrating its tenth anniversary, I decided to read this ambitious book to better understand the history of genetics research and how far science has advanced in that short amount of time.

In August 2025, I traveled to the Windsor area of Connecticut and spent three days visiting museums, stopping at historic sites, and walking in parks. On the second day of my adventure, I went to the Vintage Radio and Communications Museum of Connecticut  (VRCMC). Across all of intense museum visitation, this museum exceeded expectation more than any other. In a year that included trips to famous stops Philadelphia, Washington DC, Old Sturbridge Village, and Plimoth Patuxet, along with dozens of other venues, this was the most unique, whimsical, and satisfying stop.

Ambiguity has been widely discussed when exploring the Grey Havens through an academic lens . The name itself feels ambiguous, its color halfway between the symbolic white of goodness and black of evil appearing throughout the text. The White Towers or Emyn Beriad feel less ambiguous with their location closer to the Shire and their defining color. During the Fourth Age, Hobbits restored and repopulated the Undertowers in Westmarch even as Elves gradually abandoned the Grey Havens to migrate across the water.

On the same day I visited the Connecticut Trolley Museum and East Windsor Historical Society , I walked through Northwest Park run by the town of Windsor, CT. This 473-acre park includes a tobacco museum, a nature center, a heritage breed animal barn, public art, and twelve miles of walking trails.

Back in November, I watched and reviewed the documentary The American Revolution , which debuted on PBS and was produced by Florentine Films co-founded by Ken Burns . Having watched many of Burns’ documentaries and made short films of my own, I decided my next long video commitment was the 4 hour and 56 minute course Ken Burns Teaches Documentary Filmmaking on MasterClass . I have seen over a third of the MasterClass catalog so far, but I leave written reviews for those with a distinctly historical theme, including Doris Kearns Goodwin Teaches U.S. Presidential History and Leadership , Tracing Your Roots through Food with Michael W. Twitty , and Black History, Black Freedom, & Black Love . Like the other MasterClasses, this course was of high quality and gave advice offered nowhere else. Throughout the course, Burns walked the viewer through the steps of creating a documentary: finding and telling a story, sourcing archival materials, writing a script, using cinematic tech...

During my first day of my adventure in the Windsor, CT area, I stopped by East Windsor Historical Society to look at their collection of buildings and related outdoor artifacts. This venue was not far away from the Connecticut Trolley Museum , which I had visited in the morning, and was a great companion visit. While the society was not open during my visit, it was easy to park and look at the well-preserved space, also known as Museums on the Green. (Falmouth Historical Society on Cape Cod, which I visited back in August 2024 , similarly calls its venue Museum on the Green.)