My writing output on this website has been on the low side lately. I’ve been busy with talks, traveling, and wrapping up loose ends when in Colorado.
In particular, however, I’ve been busy driving to the East Coast and visiting.
My planned road tripping towards the East Coast changed quite a bit from my original plans.
Frankly, the weather back East has been crappy up until recently. Even snowstorms in April!
The road trip turned into a Southwest Jaunt with lots of exploration in Utah, New Mexico, and some parts of Arizona.
But it was time to go back East.
I originally planned a leisurely jaunt towards the East Coast. Visions of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore popped up, and I wanted to make a side trip to the Cahokia Mounds, too. Among other places!
However, my middle brother announced he is starting a new life with his family in South Carolina. A fantastic job offer came his way, and the economy is much more vibrant than Rhode Island. And he’ll be leaving May 29th! :O
To sum up my travels from Colorado to Rhode Island, I put in 12+ hr driving days and spent my birthday outside of Rochester drinking a local beer. 🙂
Just as well. From somewhere in Nebraska almost until I crossed the Rhode Island line, there was almost constant hail, torrential downpours, or even only a slight drizzle.
I arrived in Rhody and proceeded to do the usual catching up with family and friends, drinking some local craft beer, and eating way too much local food, (I need to get in some more hiking!).
Leo, Tim and I have a been friends for about 25 years.
But it was not all food, friends, and family.
I did get some local hikes in the Rhode Island woods a bit.
And explored places around the ocean.
I even popped into one of the two public NPS sites in Rhode Island. 🙂
I played tourist and took a tour of the nearby state house. The state house contains a new, climate-controlled, exhibit with many historic archives. And in the museum is a portion of the signed 1638 title deed between Roger Williams and the Narragansett Sachems. Amazing how even a fragment of the nearly 400-year old title deed still exists.
I leave Monday for points south. I’ll be visiting a friend in Blacksburg, seeing Dad in NC, and will playing around the Atlanta area a bit.
Soon the road tripping portion of this trip will come to an end. Time to do one last talk for a while, do a bit of guiding, and then transition to longer backpacking trips.
More to come.
Paul…I was a Refuge Manager and the USFWS law enforcement officer at Sachuest Point for a number of years—I was one of the project managers that worked to convert the old Navy Communication building into the state-of-the-art visitor center that stands there today. I was also a project manager in 1997 responsible for tearing up the old Navy runways at Ninigret to restore them to native sand plain grasslands—complete with about 4 miles of trails. While we now live in western Massachusetts, we return to “Rhody” every few months; my wife is a native and apparently all Rhode Island natives… Read more »
Fantastic job on that place! I also made sure to get my Dels fix. 🙂
Thanks for sharing! Moved to RI a year ago and have yet to check out Big River MGMT Area or Sachuest Point – so many gems tucked away around this little state. I look forward to exploring now!
Some gems for sure! A great website for RI outdoors is this one: https://trailsandwalksri.wordpress.com/