Trustom Pond, Rhode Island

Hiking during hunting season always poses a dilemma. Do you want to risk your life, especially as you'll be wearing a hideous orange vest (don't even bother worrying about your underwear)or do you want to play it safe and 'hike' through town? Trustom Pond offers another alternative. It's a short walk, roughly 3 flat miles along nice wide paths. The main path takes you to two separate overlooks on Trustom Pond, the only pond remaining in Rhode Island without shoreside development. There are lots of birds to look at and it is pretty. At the southern most point the pond is separated from the ocean only by the narrowest of land spits that must be breached even during really high tides. In summer, I'd be tempted to swim out. Something about the place just called for a small bit of wildness.

Matunuck Oyster Bar, Aquaculture, and Rhode Island Oysters

It's always kinda nice when after a  great dinner out you can gather around google maps in satellite mode and say "my dinner were farmed from there, and there, and there." And last Saturday after a great day of kayaking we did just that. We'd tried to go Matunuck Oyster Bar during the summer, but the place was packed. On a beautiful autumn evening it was merely busy.

The entrees were good but really, the coolest thing about the Oyster Bar are, well, the oysters. We ordered a plate of assorted Rhode Island Oysters. All named after their locations. The Potters Pond oysters were the sweetest (and incidentally grown by the owner of the restaurant). On google maps you can actually see the cages. In the summer they run tours out to the farm. Next we had them from farms in Winnapaug Pond, Narragansett Bay, Point Judith Pond, and Ninigret Pond. All good. Actually all very good!!! Can't wait to go again. mmmmm...maybe in November?

A(nother) Grounding on Gaspee Penisula

HMS Gaspée, a British revenue schooner that had been enforcing unpopular trade regulations, ran aground in shallow water on June 9, 1772, near what is now known as Gaspee Point in the city of Warwick, Rhode Island, while chasing the packet boat Hannah. In a notorious act of defiance, American patriots led by Abraham Whipple and John Brown, attacked, boarded, looted, and torched the ship. By many accounts, this is actually the first act of the American Revolution.

If you live in Warwick, RI, this is the raison d'ete for Gaspee Days, a three day craft fair, party and parade.

For me, it lead to a moment of living history. Saturday some friends and I went kayaking in Narragansett Bay. First we headed North up the Pawtuxet River, then South around a very long sand spit. As we rounded the point Steve pointed out that this was Gaspee Point.

I work in a museum but I'm not really the kind of person who gets excited by the whole 'true cross' thing. Looking at Washington's wooden teeth is gross, staring at the hat Lincoln wore the night he was shot is just morbid, even a splinter for The Cross really wouldn't faze me. But doing something, or being somewhere, where something historical happened - just gives me the shivers. So there I was, paddling over the very spot where the Gaspee grounded and burned more than 300 years ago. The wind was blowing, the temperature was dropping and I was loving it. I paddled as close to the land as I could, half hoping I too would run aground.

The Flatest Century in the East, 2009

Even though I rode a Century, a hundred mile ride in one day, apparently, I'm a slacker because I haven't written about it. Which alters the question of whether life imitates art - or informs it.

Doing the Century this year was touch and go on four separate occasions:

1. the day before 
2. at the 54 mile mark
3. at the 75 mile mark
4. when SD was yacking while my right leg was cramping

 Knowing we were getting a bit older we had been training all summer for this ride. Along with regular rides we'd also done the Erie Ride for a warm up, and the Vermont week for the final big training week. But we hadn't ridden the week between Vermont and the Century and then some friends invited us to spend the weekend on their island. We knew we could ride the 100 miles. We'd ridden 80 hilly miles just the weekend before so we wondered, do we really need to do the actual ride? and if so for whose sake? Why do we set these goals and who cares if we achieve them - technically?

Philosophical musings aside, the morning of the Century found our friends enjoying a nice cup of coffee and watching the sunrise over Narragansett Bay as we pulled into the Dartmouth parking lot with 3000 other bike riders whom we soon followed North to begin circumnavigating the Southeast Mass coastline. The riding, while not flat, was nice, traffic low, and the Narragansett Bay Wheelman had hired a number of traffic police to see the massive groups across major intersections.

At the first rest stop, the peanut butter sandwiches tasted pretty good. We'd ridden 37 miles and we were feeling okay.  Between there and the next rest stop SD started lagging a bit behind. He probably doesn't remember and will, most likely, make a comment on this post as an anonymous person completely denying this but I know I wasn't peddling very hard and he was. But pedal he did. The next rest stop delievered even more sandwiches and promised a change of scenery. Up until that point we'd been riding North of Dartmouth, mostly through wooded areas. Now we headed South, riding up and down pennisula's with great views of rivers, bays and the ocean. And that was a very good thing. As much as I love riding, sitting in the saddle for over 7 hours, can be a bit boring sometimes so it's always good when there is something interesting to look at.

By mile 75, I was in desperate need of something nice to look at. My bum was a bit sore, my right leg was occasionally cramping and I didn't want to eat, or even see, another peanut butter sandwich. SD, at this point, was raring to go. We'd arrived at a short cut to the finish line which, if we took it, would result in an 82 mile ride. Now the question wasn't why do we (I) need to ride the 100 miles, if I knew I could do it, the question had become, geez, can I ride another 25 miles?  SD waited patiently.

I turned right - opting for the whole monty. Ooooowww. By mile 95 my right leg was permanently cramped. I now suspect it was some sort of mineral depletion but then I just knew that every time I turned the crank it hurt like heck. SD pulled in front and slowed enough for me to draft and that helped greatly. On the last 2 miles he thought it might be better if he rode beside me and offered comforting words, and perhaps some distraction. Lets just say that's not a good tactic with me, but the effort is much appreciated.

At 102 miles, SD pedaling along like a little kid, and me cursing every stroke and whomever threw in the extra 2 miles we returned to the Dartmouth parking lot and picked up our t-shirts.

Yeah - I can still ride a 100 miles but I do hope I never make that a goal. Goals like "riding the coast of California" or "circling the Grand Canyon" or such, would probably be funner. Oooh wait, maybe that's a good goal. Riding for fun!

But I did have fun doing the century, not just the ride but the training. AAARRGGG

Rhode Island Sustainable Aquaculture

or ... why I should have raised oysters instead of chickens during my 'back to the land' phase.

Suppose you could indulge in one of your favorite foods and not only would it be good for you but it would also be good for the environment as well as supporting the continuation of an historic trade and a sustainable foodway?

Until a few days ago I thought chickens (and their eggs) were the closest anyone could come to that idea. But I have since discovered that if you like oysters then there is a much better proposition. This liberating insight occurred to me just as I had finished reading The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell and A Geography of Oysters: The Connoisseur's Guide to Oyster Eating in North America while my daughter, having just read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.)
was looking to by local sustainable foods, and S.D. was lining up a tour of Rhode Island aquaculture sites.

For various reasons aquaculture has gotten a bad name. But like agriculture which includes both the destructive practices of agribusinesses with feedlots, disease, and inhuman working conditions and sustainable, organic farms growing high quality produce for local markets so too does aquaculture range from high density feed pens (mostly foreign) to sustainable, locally run farms.

Oyster aquaculture falls soundly into the latter category. But unlike raising, say free range chickens or beef, oysters don't even need to be feed and they improve local habitat. They spend their lives removing excess nitrogen from the water. Historically, waters all along the coast were remarkable clear (explorers repeatedly, literally, remarked on the clarity). Scientist attribute today's murky waters to increased run off both from unanchored soil and excessive suburban lawn fertilizer (especially from coastal properties) and the absence of the giant oyster reefs that existed all along the seaboard and cleaned millions of pounds of nitrogen per year. Folks are trying to restore the oyster reefs that were decimated over a hundred years ago but in the meantime oysters are mainly grown in floating rows of wire cages that look surprisingly like lobster pots. Not only do these chains of cages clean the water around them but they also provide a safe house for small fish, which in turn feed the bigger fish.

So instead of raising chickens, worrying about where their food came from and what it contained, as well as having to clean the pen and compost the waste and worst of all encounter mice, rats, opossums and weasels I could have grown some adorable little spats (I dare you to watch the video and not say "awww" when you see the baby oysters), set them out in a beautiful coastal bay, rowed out occasionally to check on them (all the while working on my tan) and then harvested the best food ever. (No offense to chicken eggs, which remain an essential part of my daily diet.)

Carolina Management Area

The quality that makes Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
the most-loved book of the AT (Appalachian Trail) crowd is not that it just describes a fantastic hike, but that it describes that and all the other things that make a walk a hike; the history, geology, plants, animals and people that you meet along that hike. I have never laughed so hard, nor so nervously as when he discussed the Bear issue, nor appreciated the history of the Appalachian people, the chestnut blight, or the community that develops among the thru-hikers, until I read that book.

This past weekend S and I hiked more trails in Arcadia and in the Carolina Management Area, again with the guidance of Ken Weber's Weekend Walks in Rhode Island: 40 Trails for Hiking, Birding & Nature Viewing, Fourth Edition. Ken (we've spent so much time together lately we've become friends) does a great job of picking interesting loop hikes and providing useful maps and written directions to keep even the most directionally-challenged hiker on the trail. He also points out the locations of abandoned cellars, forest cemeteries and the occasional outstanding tree, however, I'd suggest a few more additions.

• Geology - Rhode Island has had an intimate relationship with the glacier that spread over North America a few years ago leaving drumlins, glacial moraines, erratics, and kettles. Many of these which one runs into while hiking.
• Plants - I love trees. Especially the big tall ones. Fagus grandifolia, Quercus alba, and my personal favorite, Liriodendron tulipifera Give me a virgin forest and I'm speechless, heck a few hundred years of unchecked growth will silence me for minutes. And then there is the Hemlock. A beautiful, majestic member of the pinus family that is under attack by the Woolly Adelgid. Saturday we walked for 2 miles through a forest of dying Hemlocks. Once tall, regal giants, some over 3 feet in diameter, now bald. We crawled over the littered remains in the understory. Here and there a small white pine poked through the brush but it was all very sad and all needing a few lines to explain the life story of our long-loved plants.
• History - One cannot walk more than a few miles anywhere in New England without running along a stone wall, a cemetery or an abandoned house or stone cellar. I see those and I see a glimpse of the people who once lived here. Maybe it's the historian in me, maybe it's really the romantic, but I love to stand at the threshold, look around at the lay of the land, the run of the stonewalls, the probable site of the barn, the apple orchard, the lane to town, and think of what it was like to live here when they did. What that area did for them, and what nature is doing with it now. Every hike book should include the history of the area.
  

Back to the Carolina Management Area. It's a great place to hike. It has everything. Fields. Trees (big ones). Cemeteries. Abandoned farms. Oh, and a trout stream (if you're into that sort of thing)

Of course Ken isn't putting out any new editions, and I doubt I'll get around to it. But it's always nice to dream.

Arcadia Wildlife Management Area

This past weekend, with temperatures in the 60's, and snow on the ground, we headed to nearby Arcadia. It's a great place to hike with over 30 miles of trails wandering over 13,817 acres. We hiked the Mount Tom and Shelter Trails through beautiful pine forests and up onto ledges looking out over the whole snow-blanketed state. We also bagged two of Rhode Island's 400 fters. We, or mostly I, also pondered the existential question - is there a single definitive map of the trails?

We've been using Weekend Walks in Rhode Island: 40 Trails for Hiking, Birding & Nature Viewing, Fourth Edition as our Rhode Island hiking guide. It's a very good guide to the best trails and it certainly did a good job of pointing out the trails, and trail highlights for both weekend hikes. The maps, however, for the trails, just aren't complete.

Bill's Wild Outdoors posts some maps of Arcadia, divided into North and South by RT 165. http://newportvisions.com/home/arcadia3.html - but all the trails there don't match the ones on the ground.

The Rhode Island New England Mountain Biking Association also posts North South Maps of Bike trails superimposed on topo maps: http://www.rinemba.org/arcadia-management-area/.

But all in all, or rather my anal-retentive love of good maps aside, Arcadia is a great place to hike, and even more so when you've got the best hiking buddy ever.

The 400 fter's Club - Hiking Rhode Islands' Mountains

While small in size and low in height, the state of Rhode Island is plenty diverse in geography. From drumlins to erratics, from pine barrens to dense hardwood forests there is plenty to see, plenty of places to hike. But sometimes, hiking aimlessly, wandering hither and yon gets a bit umm, aimless. Especially for the more goal oriented of us hikers. And so it is with the acheivement oriented in mind that the 400 fter's club was born.

Can't make it to New Hampshire?
Not in shape (yet) for the big ones?
Leery of sudden blizzards?
Want to hike but have to get to Mom's for dinner by 6:00?

Go Peak Bagging in Rhode Island!

A list of the 50 heighest peaks (all above 400 ft) and their locations is at:

http://www.mountainzone.com/mountains/highest-peaks.asp?s=RI

Still to do:

1. Determine the patch design. -I'm nominating a chicken climbing a hill
2. Select award dinner location
3. Compose detailed peak criteria - i.e a peak must be 20' lower/higher than the nearest peak...
4. Compose fancy excell spread sheet for recording peak, date hiked, trail taken, etc.
   
5. OH - and hike the darn hills.
   

PS I've got Mt. Tom and Penny Hill

Glacier Park - Westerly

Yesterday the temps rose to 47 degrees and it was sunny! So....I decided to check out a local park and see how the trails ran. Glacier Park turned out to be a nice little plot of 134 acres. There are several trails through the park and if you link the white and blue it'll make a good hour walk with views of the Atlantic Ocean and a sweet little moraine kettle.

Photo map of the park

Moving to Westerly gonna eat a lot of oysters*

*sung to the tune of "Peaches" by the Presidents of the USA.

Today, a bright clear 28 degree day with snow in the afternoon forecast, is moving day. Actually big stuff moving day. I've been packing and moving the little stuff for a week now.

One thing that has really amazed me in the packing process is how much stuff I accumulated in 9 years. Yes. It's been 9 years that I've lived in the little apartment in Mystic and in that amount of time the amount of stuff I have has grown from a pick up truck load to a 16' rental truck load...and I'm throwing lots out too! (PS If anyone needs dishes, books, towels, a piece of furniture or two, or wants a few good books, be sure and stop by sometime in the next few weeks).

The funny thing is, the more I get rid of the better I feel. This of course, does not apply to the toys. Probably the most significant category of growth has been in the toy department, and those I'm not throwing out at all. I've gone from one bike, to two bikes, one kayak, two tents, three backpacks, cross country skis, snowshoes and all the related gear. I love my toys. But the furniture, dishes, towels, paintings, etc. ehh.

But back to moving. So today we pack it all the stuff up and move it to Westerly where most will wait patiently in their little boxes and bags until 1. I need them. 2. We arrive at our final destination (unknown at present).

Millions of oysters oysters for me