2 days, 2 rivers, 2 kayaks

In a recent post, I noted what a hot, dry and perfect weather summer we've been having. Well! Never mind.

In between the torrential downpours, bolts of lightning and wind gusts of the last several days, Retired Guy and I did manage to get into our new kayaks on two consecutive clear days, Friday and Saturday. Friday was my day to pick our destination, and I chose one of my favorite spots: the East Branch of the Westport River, which is just across the state line from Rhode Island and about a 40-minute drive from Providence. Friday was the day to go because the tide would be high at just about 3 p.m., meaning that we'd be paddling downriver with the tide from our put-in spot at Hix Bridge on Hix Bridge Rd., and ending up at the state boat ramp next to the Back Eddy restaurant just in time for dinner.


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IT ALL WORKED according to plan. It took us two hours to paddle three or four miles downstream to the ramp, where we'd left our "drop" car, CHEEKY. Then we drove back up Route 88 to Hix Bridge to get the Subaru, which is the only one of the cars that can carry kayaks. (We're looking into getting Mini racks for kayaks, but it's a process.)

The weather was perfect, the river lovely and clear. The rock islands and green riverbanks dotted with summer cottages made us feel that we were in Maine. Ospreys swooped overhead, and cormorants dove into the clear green waters. We didn't see stripers, but we did see striper fishermen in kayaks.

The day ended with a wonderful meal at the always lively and fun waterfront restaurant, the Back Eddy, where we shared a bowl of steamers and a pair of cod-crabcakes in a remoulade sauce. A blueberry cobbler with ginger ice cream for dessert, plus a couple of glasses of wine brought the bill to about $60.

IT WAS SO MUCH FUN that when the next day, Saturday, dawned clear, we packed up and headed in the other direction to one of Retired Guy's favorite spots, the Wood River in Exeter's Arcadia State Management Area. Without any tide to worry about, we paddled gently down the stream from the state access point at Route 165 in Arcadia three or four miles to the pull-out point (where we'd left a car) at Barberville Dam on Arcadia Road. (Click this link to see a map.)

What a different experience this was than we'd had the day before: Where the Westport River is a wide tidal estuary of the sea, the Wood River is a narrow freshwater stream, a favorite of trout fishermen (of whom we saw several). I'd been secretly afraid that we'd be bombarded by mosquitoes, but we weren't, and the peace and calm of the river were magical. We saw a heron, several ducks, lots of colorful dragonflies, and painted turtles sunning themselves on rocks. No trout, though, as it was the middle of the day.

(See if you can spot the well-camouflaged ducks in this photo of a stump in the river. Click on the photo to make it larger.)

I don't know why it's taken me this long to discover kayaking, but I'm glad I did.

The two best online resources I've found for finding places to go around here are Rhode Island Blueways and Wild Turkey Paddlers in Southeastern Massachusetts.

Please send a Comment if you know of others.

Newport not-so-fast, and bachelorettes galore

Saturday was one of those hot, steamy nights that make you just want to be out on the water on a motorboat or sailboat. Not actually owning such a boat meant that RG and I had just about one good option for the evening: taking the fast ferry from Providence to Newport. We decided on this plan at around 4:30, and in a few minutes I had booked us online on the 6:05 boat with a return at 9:50 p.m. -- enough time for dinner and walking around, or so I thought. Cost: $48.

The main attraction was the boat ride, because when it comes to this ferry, "fast" is really not that fast, at least not for us. It would take us, say, 20 minutes to drive to the ferry dock at Conley Piers off Allens Avenue in Providence, another 10 to park and pick up our tickets, then 50 for the actual trip to Newport. By way of comparison, driving straight to Newport from where we live in Barrington might take us 40 minutes. Of course, then we'd have to park the car.

When we arrived at the Pier and saw big "LOT FULL" signs, we thought we were sunk. But it turned out that some kind of big noisy carnival and concert was being held, and when we said we were there for the ferry, we were directed to a far back parking area and told to "just squeeze in wherever you can." After picking up our tickets, we strolled over to the Tiki Bar waiting area, and right on time, here comes the Ocean State catamaran ferry. It was so hot, we sat in the open-air area on top all the way down and had fun identifying familiar Bay landmarks from the water side. There was Crescent Park, there was Blithewold mansion, there was Melville Boat Basin and finally the War College.

We stepped onto the Newport dock just after 7, windblown but definitely cooled off. Had we driven, leaving the house at 5, we'd have arrived an hour ago, paying maybe $8 for two gallons of gas and another $10 to $15 to park. But where would be the adventure in that?

Newport was really, really jumping. There was no sign of any slack-off in tourism or economic slowdown in the city that night. Walking up and down the waterfront nearly to Wellington Avenue, we were turned away from restaurant after restaurant. At all of my favorite places to eat on the harbor -- 22 Bowen's, Clarke Cooke, the Pearl and the West Deck, we were firmly told that without reservations, the wait would be an hour to an hour and a half. My last best hope, Cafe Zelda, I thought might be sufficiently off the tourist radar to at least sit us at the bar. No such luck.

So, sad to say, somewhere around 9 p.m., we staggered into a convenience store and seized on Milky Way frozen ice cream bars and bottled iced tea. Sitting on a curbstone, watching the parade of people passing by, we couldn't help but notice an inordinate number of bachelorette types, traveling in groups of 6 or 7, teetering precariously on high heels and giggling as they floated on cascades of chiffon ruffles, leaving clouds of perfume in their wakes. One girl even had a sash across her bosom that said "Bachelorette."

These women were so numerous, in fact, that even some of the young men they passed seemed to have had enough. "Oh no! Not more bachelorettes!" we overheard one man say as he stepped into Thames Street to dodge yet another pastel pod.

So intrigued by this phenomenon was I that, once back home and having revived myself somewhat with a peanut butter sandwich, I Googled "bachelorettes newport ri". What I found (from a blog called Be My Bridesmaid) is that Newport has become the unofficial bachelorette capital of the East Coast, possibly the country.

Who knew? I just hope that wherever they all were headed on those impossibly high heels, they had reservations for dinner.

Out Of Office Reply Day

Today was Day 3 or 4 of a string of perfect days to be on vacation in Rhode Island. The inland temperature topped 90, but at the coast it was in the 80s with a cooling breeze. If you were at work today, you must have been lonely, because everyone else was off.

Every email I sent got the brisk bounceback message "Out Of Office Reply," and every office phone that answered was a voice mail message to the effect that "I will be out of the office until Monday, July 21."

It wasn't a day to do any kind of business, and most people were smart enough to know it.

Here's what some of them were doing while you were working!

Kayaking on Ninigret Pond in Charlestown.


Eating fried clams at Champlin's in Galilee.

Jumping from a rope swing into the Pawcatuck River in Westerly.

After 6, even the lifeguards were off, above at East Beach in Charlestown.

Catching some rays at Green Hill Beach

Sunday didn't seem like much of a beach day -- windy with a low ceiling of clouds over Providence. But my friend Charlie only gets Sundays off, so it was going to be a beach day for us. We'd made plans earlier in the week to catch up, and when he came (with his friend Alan) to pick me up, I noted that his perpetual tan had faded like a favorite T shirt. Time to catch some rays.

Leaving Retired Guy to monitor the Tour de France and the Red Sox on TV, the three of us had just started for Middletown when Maria called and said she'd rented a place in Green Hill for August and did we want to go down to the shore with her while she paid the deposit? We'd be able to park the car at her place to use the beach, which has no public parking. We made a U turn to pick her up, and then the four of us were heading to South Kingstown on Route 2, the old South County Trail, still the best route to the shore.

Well, it turned out to be a great beach day. Seemingly, the wind had pushed the clouds inland, leaving the coastline clear as a bell, with a nice breeze to cool us off while we sat on an old flannel sheet of Alan's and ate the sandwiches we'd bought at Rippy's. Charlie had brought along some SPF 4 sun lotion, and even though I had my 45 in my bag, I couldn't resist. The stuff is practically a controlled substance now. I felt I had to look around to see if anyone could see me putting it on.

The waves at Green Hill Beach were big, the backwash tugging you out and burying your feet in the sand whle you picked your moment to jump in. But the water was perfect. (I had brought my instant-read meat thermometer, and it read a comfortable 70.)

It was the first time I'd met Alan, who grew up in North Providence but escaped to the Charlestown/Matunuck shore at every opportunity. He knew his way around, remembered the long-gone Green Hill Motel, where you used to be able to park and pay to use the beach, and the glory days of Moonstone Beach, now lost to the dreaded piping plovers.

We all noted the plethora of Private Beach signs, keeping different groups of people -- and hypothetical birds -- each on their own patch of sand, which unfortunately was steadily shrinking as the tide came up late in the afternoon. "You know, the sand below the mean high tide line is public," I said to Alan, kind of as a test. But the guy knew his stuff: "Yeah, but just try sitting over there, and watch what happens."

Besides being savvy about Rhode Island state law and beach rights, Alan demonstrated a neat beach trick I'd never seen before: burning wood with a magnifying glass. He'd brought along a powerful jewelers' glass, through which he focused the sun's rays on pieces of weathered beach wood to burn letters and pictures into them with a tiny, moving flame.

We all were mesmerized by the process, and before long he'd made a beachy sign for Maria's Providence store, Antiques and Interiors, and one each for me and Charlie to take home.



He said he'd known by looking at the clouds over Providence that morning that the coastline would be clear. I guess it takes an old beach bum from North Providence to know that kind of thing.

Micro cars at Larz Anderson Museum

Owning a Mini Cooper seems to have unleashed a craving in us to see even smaller cars -- cars such as these otherworldly-looking micro classics, which were gathered today for a show on the grounds of the Larz Anderson Car Museum in Brookline, Mass.

We recruited nephew Will, 9, who is a junior car head himself, to spend the afternoon looking at dozens of cars that are so small that they make our Mini CHEEKY look like an SUV. I rode in one car -- a miniscule yellow Fiat checker taxi -- whose proud owner told me it gets 80 miles per gallon of gas. (I didn't tell him that I've heard it said about Fiats that the letters in the name stand for "Fix it again, Tony.")

While Micro Mini Day happens just once a year, the Anderson historic car barn museum is less than an hour's drive from Providence, and it hosts unusual car events on Saturdays through October. Next Saturday is Extinct Auto Day, for example, followed by Triumph and Miata Days. The last event this year is Studebaker Day Oct. 26.

Summer night: Cruising in South County

I'm almost afraid to say it, but so far, this has been a summer of spectacular weather.

Yesterday afternoon, having done a few mundane errands in Warwick, RG and I decided to cruise on down to the shore in Charlestown and Westerly to catch a little of that summer-vacation feeling. We did have a couple of goals in mind, including rounding out our continuing exploration of the state's best ice cream places and fried clam shacks. (Look for the results soon on Projo.)

South County is prime territory for clams and ice cream, and a Mini Cooper is the ideal mode of transportation for the winding back roads that took us through the pretty villages of Hopkinton, Hope Valley and Wyoming all the way down to Route 1. (To whom do we complain about the new traffic lights at so many intersections that interrupt what used to be a beautiful flow along Rhode Island's premier shoreline highway?)

After a while, we landed in Watch Hill.

Having spent my favorite childhood summers in nearby Weekapaug, to me this part of the Westerly shore is summer on a plate.

A few things had changed since I'd last been in town, including the reopening of the beloved Book & Tackle used-book shop near its old spot but in a new building on Bay Street, and the raising of a skeleton of a new Ocean House Hotel up on Bluff Road. The price to ride the beach-side carousel had gone up (are the horses fueling up with gas?), and the walkers' entrance to Napatree Point had been refurbished (see photo, below, of the new entrance).

For more on exploring Watch Hill, look for an upcoming feature in Projo. In the meantime, check out the slideshow of my harbor photos from last night that follows this post.


We headed over to Misquamicut to try to catch some of Duke Robillard's free concert at the beach (see yesterday's post for more about that), but by the time we got there the parking lots were full and the sand in front of the stage was entirely covered with people in beach chairs. It was standing-room-only, with your feet in the ocean and the great band's sounds muffled by the roar of the surf.

So we headed home, sated with clams and ice cream -- a full plate of memorable South County summer specials to share.

In season: Free outdoor concerts

So Retired Guy and I headed down to Middletown last evening to check out the sounds of "The Elderly Brothers," who were performing an outdoor free concert at Sweet Berry Farm on Mitchell's Lane. Sweet Berry (already one of my favorite farmstands in the state) is playing host to a series of free Tuesday evening concerts (6 to 8 p.m.) this summer, and last night's "'50s Picnic" theme was the very first one.

Plenty of other people found it impossible to resist the siren call of free music and picnicking on the lawn. While it wasn't quite Tanglewood, there was an appreciative crowd of perhaps 75 people listening to mellow renditions of oldies such as Only the Lonely, Johnny B. Goode, and several James Taylor numbers.

Many brought their own picnics, including chilled bottles of wine and fancy baskets, and set themselves up with lawn chairs and folding tables with tablecloths. Others bought food in the Sweet Berry cafe or purchased the $9.99 menu special of Southern fried chicken, red potato salad, succotash and Jell-O in a cup.

We shared the chicken plate, and it was excellent -- the chicken crispy, the succotash farmstand-fresh and delicious. The music was relaxing, and for the livelier numbers some of the children in the audience caught the spirit and got up to dance.

Then the wind came up and the sky darkened ominously, so we packed up and left early.

Tonight, Rhode Island's own Duke Robillard and his blues band play a free concert at 6 p.m. at Westerly Town Beach (next to Misquamicut State Beach). The venue couldn't be nicer for the Blues On The Beach series: You can swim in the ocean, then picnic on the sand right in front of the band. Here are photos from a 2006 Blues On The Beach concert.