Rhode Island Ramblings

Jill's Journal: *Erika has clearly made herself at home in Rhode Island! She devours books at a frightening rate lately, especially if they’re books about horses.

*We left Connecticut on something called Voluntown Road and were overwhelmed by beauty at the state line. Our first impression of Rhode Island was out of this world. A majestic lake called Beach Pond stretched on both sides of the road, surrounded by alpine trees and very reminiscent of Rob’s childhood home of Lake Tahoe. I wish I had a picture. It was so beautiful that we may head back there tomorrow (and Rob’s entertaining the thought of buying the first house he can find with that view)!

*Our address for the next 10 days is in West Greenwich. This campground is a busy, busy place and if the scores of people with microphones belting out bad karaoke is any indication, people are clearly enjoying their vacations here! The Connecticut campground was equally raucous. I know we’ve only been to 14 or 15 campgrounds so far, but people in New England enjoy their campgrounds more so than anywhere else we’ve been!

*Our immediate neighbors are the talk of the campground. They’re in a $1.5 million luxury Prevost bus and pull a Lexus SUV behind. He wears all black, she wears all white, and they have a personal driver! Their dinner spread tonight (on their picnic table) was set with crystal and silver. After dinner, they sent their driver to a hotel. These rock star buses are immense, for goodness sakes (entire bands and their crews can live in luxury on one for months), so everyone is wondering how they couldn’t find a bed to spare for the driver. They are not your usual “campers!”

*We made a special stop at a mind-boggling used book store in Niantic (CT) on our way here. Three buildings and 350,000 books. The girls had a ball and each got to pick out a few new titles. The experience was marred on our way up the steps to the front door. With no warning, a yellow jacket suddenly swooped in and stung Victoria on the leg. The poor child absolutely screamed and then writhed in pain. It clearly hurt tremendously and my heart broke for her. It took a pack of ice and a lot of TLC before she was even willing to walk on the leg again. Poor thing. :(

*Everyone knows Rhode Island is the smallest state in the union (48 miles “tall” and 37 miles “wide”), but did you know its official name is “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations”? The name comes from the merging of two colonies way back when and there is a referendum election coming up soon to let the citizens decide whether or not to keep the full name or shorten it to what everyone thinks it is anyway. Despite the name, the state is obviously part of the mainland. The original settlement named Rhode Island was on what is now Aquidneck Island (one of more than 30 islands in Narragansett Bay). And no, I have no idea how to pronounce either Aquidneck or Narragansett.

*Even though Rhode Island is so small, it has the second-highest population density in the union (second only to New Jersey). It’s hard to believe as we’re very much in the country. We even passed a restaurant here called “Middle of Nowhere Diner.”

*Crazy random fact: we’ve noticed an insane amount of donut shops here, probably because the girls point out just about every one to us. It turns out we’re not imagining it. We’ve learned Rhode Island has the highest number of donut shops per capita in the country! Dunkin’ Donuts alone has over 225 locations in this tiny state.