Fun take Six: India Point Park

As the seasons changed many many non-adventurous things began to distract us from adventures. I hope to begin Winter adventures this December until then please enjoy these shots of a quick bikeride through India Point Park. they are working on connecting the east bay bike path from East Providence to India Point Park. Very Exciting. There is a great play ground with a mosaic that depicts the history of the might might blackstone. Hurray!
for beautiful Fall days.

The Biggest Littlest State

Oh Rhodie don't be so hard on yourself!

Fun Take Five: Westerlyish

Driving back from NYC we took the long road home and stopped into Westerly.
found this handmade Castle, in an empty store front.
Its for Sale, in case you are interested.


further down one we turned into a harbor and found this.


They had the whole cycle-of-life for sale.


we came home with some adventuresome dinner. I got scared, but it was delicious and magical all the same.

Fun Take Four: Historic Pawtucket

I had some lovely childhood friends in from out of town. Since 2 of them were "with child" I tried to think of something that would honor their condition and not ask too much of them physically. But it seems the Gods on Mount Olympus decided that last Sunday was the day to punish me for my life long hubris.

PLAN A)
take a ride on the HISTORIC Slater Mill Carousel.

What Actually Happened: the friggin Carousel is closed due to renovations till late September, renovations that include a small sign warning of lead abatement. what a wonderful combination gestating humans + lead.

all was not lost since, we did bump into a wiffle ball tournement in Slater Park


(yes that bouncy tunnel does say "strong communities")

Dagget Farm. a sleepy little petting zoo, which you are not allowed to pet the 5 grizzled animals trapped in the faux farm setting. our favorite was the fabulously chubby pig.

(this is a pony the pig was sleeping by the time i got close enough to snap a photo with my camera)

we also found this non-academic representation a dinosaur or a stumpy stumpy giraffe.


also noteworthy was the graphic design displayed at the attached snack bar.



PLAN B)
a tour of the HISTORIC SLATER MILL HISTORIC SITE, historic historic historic
I think Slater Mill is awesome, my summer reading is focused on the huge cultural change that happened because of the industrial revolution, esp. the labor history of Rhode Island and the southern slave labor that fueled all that darned technological innovation.

having said that i assumed that the tour would be an hour tops. but no no no no.
my third trimester friends were forced to stand for two hours in the August sun.
I mean we learned a lot.
but it is weird to interact with people in historical costumes who kinda go in and out of character as they feed you tid-bits of information.

this is the pre-industrial new england farm house

How to make linens.

Beat the flax.


this is what flax looks like up close.



make flax into thread on the little spinning wheel



or on the big spinning "walking" wheel


(please note the non-historic motion detector and electric wall outlet).

On to the MACHINE SHOP

the coolest thing ever. is seeing how the water wheel worked.

the water turned the wheel. the wheel turned the stick thingy that went upstairs. the stick thingy turned and turned a metal rod that went the length of the machine shop-when belts are connected to the turning thing they run the machines.






no rest for the weary.

and on to the MILL
but first lets take a moment and consider
The River that changed the world
THE MIGHTY BLACKSTONE


inside the mill we learned how to make thread from cotton. from our guide and a carved 10 year old boy.


what you should know is all the machines in the mill are killers, they killed children they pulled out their hair, tore off their limbs, decapitated them and/or just crushed them into impoverished slurry. our guide told us this and made us sad.


making thread
you take the cotton fibers and you beat the crap out of them, comb them.
and you pinch them, you humiliate them.

this machine is rad it makes shoe laces for lucky shoes.

ever wonder how come your tshirts don't have side seams? its cause they knit them in circles.


after this we were tired. we were weary. we were grateful for our clothes. our thread-filled clothes with zippers.

Fun Take 3:Foster/Gloster

You are gonna be jealous. There is no way around it. I was lead to a magical land that looked like this:

And found blueberries as big as grapes and as sweet as me.
I love about Pick-Yr-Own is you pay to labor-and you are always happy you did. So now, I am freezing a lot of my 11 pounds of joy.

The keyboard in the back is for writing love songs to blueberries. I hope to learn how to make preserves and enjoy summer goodness all year long.


We took the long long long way home and past by the Shady Acres Dairy Bar, which we made the car turn around to go to.
The wait staff stared at us as if we were festering sores. We were they youngest people in the place by at least 30 years. I am pretty sure everyone else was ordering off the senior citizen menu. We got some fried food. The Codger in the booth behind us commented loudly "you can't order anything bad here." I have my doubts.
So the new goal was George Washington Management area.
People have I told you that Rhode Island is a magical place? Despite the fact that we turned into the wrong driveway and disturbed 3 ambiguously uniformed young men checking out a large shot gun and a possibly naked man in van with a custom paint job depicting a human skull engulfed in blue flames-GWM was pretty inviting.



I am up for camping soon.

I will let the pictures tell you why.



Upper Rhode Island really reminds me of my youthful meanderings in rural Wisconsin.

Not technically a Sunday Adventure

I stopped by the Ye Olde Dexter Armory to see a Puppet show by New Urban Arts
What I saw was lovely and straight up charming. The Sky opened up about 2 minutes after the final curtain sending everyone scrambling, and canceling the student films that were to follow.

I noticed this shallow relief scratched on the outside wall of my work. Which entertained me. Especially cause the building used to be a Church before it was a library.

Fun Take Two: Woonsocket

I have heard about this place for ages. I finally conned someone to drive me to Wright’s Dairy Farm. Which you know is authentic cause it has a website. It technically is in North Smithfield, but that means little to me.

It is a small scale Dairy Farm that makes most from the Bakery attached to the farm. Inside is dairy bomb after dairy bomb. In addition, sales people with the disposition of camp counselors-young, peppy and vaguely entertained by our not-from-around here antics.

I was with a lactose intolerant, so I ate most of the glory.
I had what they termed a small cream puff. I had to open my mouth as if I was at the Dentist.




I had some Coffee Milk, cause its Rhode Island. Made with whole Milk-so its totally good.


I went back for a bag of Hermits cause while waiting for the bathroom, I read an article that they were on the food network, and I am a sucker.
They were good by they had nonhippy-hydrogenated oil, a dairy farm that does not use butter is sketchy.
I also bought a Napoleon, but I could not do it by myself and ate it a couple days later.




Nevertheless, it smelled authentically like poop. We nosed around a bit and met these fine ladies.



In the maternity ward. They were very pregnant and very uncomfortable, they snorted and just seemed so ungodly huge, with their spindly little legs and couch potato attitude. We were charmed bye them and half convinced they were going to give birth right then so we started at them for awhile, they did not give birth so we content ourselves at cooing at the new calves who were only a few weeks old and again, ungodly huge.


When they calves get a little bigger they stay in these igloos, which is what you see when you drive up. We kinda thought that they were icky veal containers, but they are kinda like nonmobile RV’s for little cows.



They do the milking from 3-5. You are invited to watch. We had other adventures to get to.



NEXT STOP
The Museum of Work and Culture
in DT Woonsocket

The museum is an experiential museum, which means it is kinda like you are in a large diorama, sometimes surrounded by freaky life-sized figures. As an amateur student, I am always interested in learning more about the history surrounding me. And the museum has a very specific subject the experience of the French Canadians who immigrated to work in the textile mills in Woonsocket. From the late 1800’s until the 1930’s. What me and the companion were most interested in was the history of the textile unions vs. the Catholic Church/the Mill Management. (People got excommunicated for striking!)
The museum presents the concerns of all three sides. Sheesh! Life is/was hard.


There even is a Catholic School Memory Archive, where anyone who has ever attended a Catholic School can add their 2 cents. If my mom ever gets wind of this they are gonna have to add a new wing for all she’s got to say.

They also recreated the UTI union hall which is so creepy accurate, I swear I could smell old man bouncing off the faux-asbestos tiles and wood paneling.


Things we didn’t get a chance to see/enjoy

-the Ye Olde Fish Shop