Rhode Island

Day 46 Rhode Island

Friday, June 12, 2009

The fog rolled in last evening and the fog horn sounded about every ten seconds, every ten seconds, every ten seconds. At some point during the night the showers turned into torrents, it rained hard. That’s okay, as long as it’s not thunder and lightning, the dogs are fine…and we can sleep!

Morning, was grey, foggy and cool….again. BUT it warmed up and I was happy. We headed up to my hometown, Johnston, to visit one of Jim’s fifty-something cousins. Yes, you read that right. Jim has over 50 FIRST cousins. I thought it was something like 54, but the family historian, who we were visiting with, said 58 and I’ll take her word for it. During our visit and our trip to a restaurant for lunch, she filled us in about all the relatives. I don’t know how she keeps track. Of course, I only have a handful of relatives, so I didn’t grow up with it.

The clouds were thinning out and on our way back to Narragansett the sun came out! We grabbed the bikes and headed just a mile or so down the road to Galilee, a sleepy little fishing village. It hasn’t changed much over the years.
Galilee was my dad’s chosen spot for clamming. If the weather was warm and the tide was right, that is where we would be in the summer. A little inlet a tidal pond, a good low tide and mud is all you needed for bucket of calms. Just up the road was a beautiful sandy beach, complete with a playground. What more could a kid want, this was heaven! This state park looks out over the salt pond and when the wind catches the salt breeze along with the wild beach roses in full bloom, I am immediately transported back over fifty years. It is a good feeling, even if only for a brief moment.

Thankfully, we managed to squeeze that exercise in because later we joined long time friends for an Italian dinner at a restaurant that has been in business for many years…and known for ridiculously large portions. We took most of the meal home.
Tomorrow, the weather is supposed to improve. We are going to meet with another of Jim’s first cousins, who lives near where we are staying. They live in Florida, but spend summer’s at the beach here…the best of both worlds