It's a beautiful location and the park is well maintained with a few waterfront sites overlooking the very wide and marshy Aguntang Brook that leads out into the ocean. All the Rhode Island State Parks campgrounds are reasonably priced, if you are a Rhode Island resident you'll pay just $20 a night to camp here. Non-residents are charged an extra $15 per night and everyone pays $.25 a minute, with a 3 minute minimum, if you want to use the hot showers in the bath house. The outdoor cold water rinse showers are free if you just need to get the salt water and sand off you. I'm sure there is a good reason for this, I'm just not sure what that could be!
 THURSDAY |
TRAVEL DAY |
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"The Ocean State"
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Today however while traveling east through Connecticut and into Rhode Island we started seeing a whole different solution to traffic flow at intersections. Basically here in Rhode Island they just eliminate intersection altogether. I did some research and found out this is a variant of something called a Michigan Left Turn.
Here is a graphic I found displaying a typical Michigan Left Turn. This moves the turning lanes away from the main intersection and creates a second set of stop lights very nearby. Not quite sure how this improves anything.
But here in Rhode Island while traveling on US1 we found that where a very minor road crosses a major road they just eliminate the intersection altogether. I very crudely altered the Michigan Left graphic to show what we found in Rhode Island.
This works out great for people traveling along the primary highway for a longer distance, there are no traffic lights or intersections to deal with. But if you are on the secondary road and need to get to the other side and continue on in the same direction it does create a bit of a problem.
Let's see if a can explain it in words so you can follow along on the graphic. In order to go straight across the road you first have to make a right hand turn and merge into several lanes of oncoming traffic that is going 50MPH. Then as soon as you can, you have to start moving over to the far left lane so you can enter into the U-Turn Only lane. Don't worry if you miss the first opportunity to do so because about every half mile or so there will be other U-Turn Only lane.
Now wait until there is a break in the traffic so you can make your U-Turn and go to the far right lane. If you made it into the first U-Turn it won't be so bad, there will be a separate non-traffic right turn lane for you to enter into, make your right turn and be on your way. The problem gets worse when you weren't able to merge left fast enough to make that first U-Turn Lane. Because the second U-Turn Lane may not be at an intersection at all and that right turn lane won't be there to get out of oncoming traffic.
Now add into the mix the fact that you are towing a 28 foot trailer behind you. See how this could go terribly wrong pretty fast? Don't worry our now fully functioning GPS has a feature where I can tell it not to route us anywhere that we will be asked to make a U-Turn and fortunately our destination was on the right hand side of US1 so we wouldn't of gotten into the predicament anyway!
Now I can't wait until we visit Michigan so we can experience Michigan Left turns where it all began. If you check out our Visited States Map at the very bottom of the blog you'll notice that Michigan is actually the very last state we plan to visit in the lower 48, of course things can always change but for now, let's leave it the way it is!
 FRIDAY |
WORK DAY FROM THE POD |
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 SATURDAY |
SIGHTSEEING DAY |
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Our reason for going into Newport is to check out their Cliff Walk, a 3.5 mile long walkway between huge waterfront estate homes and the cliffs that create the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean in this area. This walkway was designed and built by the estate owners between 1880-1920, I can only imagine that in today's world the property owners would be a little more reluctant to share their backyards and these wonderful views with the general public. Today we will only be checking out a small portion of the walk, about 3/4 of a mile of the northern end, because we have many other things to see and do today.
THE CLIFF WALK
in Newport, Rhode Island
One other thing we learned while driving around Rhode Island, particularly in Providence, is you not only have to keep your eyes on the road, you have to keep a watch out on the rooftops, you never know what may be lurking up there.
The second and third photos show a local landmark, and the advertising gimick, for Big Blue Bug Solutions, a pest control company headquartered in Providence, RI.
Enough driving around, let's get out and stretch those legs some more. Rhode Island only has one National Memorial site and that is dedicated to the contributions of a man named Roger Williams. There is a vistor center at the site where we got our Passport Book stamped and then watched a short documentary video about Roger's accomplishments and contributuions to creating the state of Rhode Island in the early days of our nation. After the video we spoke with the park ranger for quite some time about the local history and then we ventured out into the beautiful rectangular park in the center of Providence which makes up the Memorial site.
All this walking around has made me thirsty! I know just the thing to quench that, another Rhode Island specialty drive, Del's Frozen Lemonade. There are shops, food trucks and refreshment carts all over the city featuring this frozen delight, we just had to try one. Apparently not all Del's Frozen Lemonades are alike!
We went to a stand alone Del's store which sold us two lemonades that just didn't seem to meet our expectations. We looked it up on Google and sure enough the location we chose only received 3.2 stars where most others were in the 4.5 to 5 star range. Next time we'll consult Google first!
It's mid-afternoon now and we need to get back home and get some rest because tonight we have a date. Tricia's step sister Chris has invited us over for dinner and her husband Bob will be BBQing up some chicken and sausage. We are supposed to bring desert and I know there was a delicious looking Dutch Apple Crumb Pie at the Stop-n-Shop Grocery on Thursday, guess we'll have to stop and pick one up.
 SUNDAY |
WORK DAY FROM THE POD |
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• • • 100 MILE • • • |
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A mile and a half hike along The Cliff Walk
brings our annual total up to 18.25 miles.
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Who will be the first to correctly guess our next location?
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