Rhode Island still

From Jose 

We are still in Rhode Island. This is where Diane grew up and where her family lives.  I had previously met most of her family and it has been great to see them again and to meet the ones I was missing. The rv is parked in Diane's niece's driveway. Sometimes Diane's niece, Michelle, drives us around and sometimes we have the use of her car while she is at work. The rv is hooked up to electricity only and it is fairly easy to unhook and go, so we have been getting around a lot. Diane's sister Karen took on a great guided tour of Bristol, RI. Diane has a lot of memories of Rhode Island and has shown me places where she lived, went to school or worked. I am new here and don't have such memories, so I look at it from a different point of view. 

I do have a friend in the area, Dawn, who I met in Kanab when she worked a t Best Friends, and her daughter Emily and dog Chachi. She knew we were in the area but one night we showed up at her work in a pizza restaurant. She has not changed any since I've known her, which is a good thing. A few days later we all met for a picnic in Chase Park where the dogs got to run around and even jump in a lake. The weather was perfect. 

I'm not usually the shopping kind but two  stores here deserve special attention. One is Benny's, which is a big general store, like a smaller version of a Walmart but the stuff they sell is more "interesting". I found some parallel pliers that my father used to have when I was growing up and that I had been looking for. The other store is Harbor Freight Tools. We are all familiar with the fliers and ads in magazines but to see all those tools in one place is amazing. Their prices are great. They have lots of tools I would like to buy, most of them I don't really need and could not fit in the rv anyway. But it sure is fun to look.

This part of Rhode Island is made up of different islands, peninsulas, channels etc.  The is water almost anywhere you look. One of my favorite parts is Newport. To get there we go over a cool suspension bridge that is all lit up at night. Many famous people had their "summer cottages" there (54 bedrooms, with a staff of 36). Many of these mansions  have been restored by the Preservation Society of Newport County and are open to the public. Colt state park is a great place to picnic, bicycle or just hang out with a great view of the ocean.

Last night  we went to the 8th Annual Halloween Iron Pour, presented by the Steel Yard and the Iron Guild.  These two organizations promote the art of working with molten iron.  For this show they built a volcano complete with flowing lava (iron) and a miniature village. The volcano destroys the village,with a little help from the students.  See a short video here. It was very impressive and the crowd loved it.

You might recall that we planned this trip so we could spend the spring going up the West Coast, the summer in the northern states, the fall going down the East Coast and the winter in the south, avoiding very cold or very hot weather. We did catch the changing of the leaves in Rhode Island, which is the best. The weather here is starting to get chilly.  It gets down to mid 40s at night. I hope that is as cold as we're going to see.

Stay tuned