Rhode Island - A Grand Time in the Smallest State

Why, yes, that is 2023 in our rearview mirror and 2024 peeking over the horizon.  Our family was blessed with a happy holiday season, and I hope the same is true for all of you.  We added a bunch of new memories to our cache of beloved Christmas favorites, and had a delightful time doing it.  During one of my gift shopping expeditions, I spotted an “Indoor Snowball Fight” – a box of 16 soft, fleecy, fabric “snowballs.”  Alan and I gifted one box to our son and daughter-in-law and one box to our daughter and her boyfriend as the last gifts of Christmas night.  Let’s just say that the expected ensued, no one was hurt, nothing was damaged and the “kids” finally understood why Alan didn’t want to light the fireplace that evening.

Now that the busy holiday season is rapidly coming to a close, I’m picking up where I left off on our Little States trip of June 2023.  Alan and I had already spent a long weekend at the quirky Winter Island Maritime Park in Massachusetts.  Our next stop was Rhode Island, and we set up base camp at Fishermen’s Memorial State Park in Narragansett for a quick, two-night visit.  We managed to pack a lot into our short stay but, before we get to that, let me tell you about a mistake I made.

Campfire Talk

Merriam-Webster defines the word “impromptu” as (1) “made, done or formed on or as if on the spur of the moment;” and (2) “composed or uttered without previous preparation.”  Welcome to an impromptu edition of Campfire Talk, a post consisting of the sort of things you might talk about around a campfire with friends or fellow travelers or even around the dinner table with your family.  It was composed with no preparation so, basically, I’m just winging it and you’ll be dealing with my “spur-of-the-momentness” regarding a variety of mostly unrelated topics.  Here’s hoping Mike doesn’t see fit to correct my grammer grammar.  Interspersed throughout the post are random photos from this fall’s tour of the southwest.

Regrets?  Ten days after we arrived home from our fall tour of the southwest (and well before we had worked our way through “catch up” and all the appointments I had scheduled), we found out from our sister-in-law, Joan, that Alan’s uncle was celebrating his 100^th birthday on November 28th.  Since Alan and Uncle Adolph share a November 28th birthday, and since Alan’s uncle is the last remaining aunt/uncle on either side of his family, Alan thought it would be a good idea to make a quick trip to Florida to wish his uncle a happy birthday in person.  The timing wasn’t the best.  We had Thanksgiving just ahead and Alan was scheduled for jury duty the week of December 4th. We talked about waiting until January, but that seemed like too far away.   Alan really wanted to go in November, and I agreed that it was the right thing to do.  So, with our camping gear still not packed away for the year, our Christmas newsletter not written, and virtually no holiday shopping or cleaning done, we told the kids that we were on our way out yet again, and we set off for Florida.  Since we prefer the pace of a road trip over an airline flight, it was three driving days down, four driving days back and three days to visit in Florida.  We left the day after Thanksgiving, and arrived home the night before Alan needed to report for jury duty.  Was it even worth it?