9/7 Rhode Island




This is Carrie Rose, posting about our RV adventures in New England while Jeff/Dad/Grandpa was off with his siblings.  My daughter Summer, my sister Emily, and her two daughters Rhonda and Sierra traveled through the New England states with me and into Canada.

We left Emily's house in Connecticut on Thursday and went to the Powder Mill Ledges Wildlife Refuge in Rhode Island for a hike.  Unfortunately, the area was having a major heat wave, so even though we left in the morning, it wasn't great hiking weather.  The kids were still pretty cheerful, and the trailhead had a visitor's center with air conditioning and a water bottle refill station, so we were able to cool off.

Us at the air conditioned visitors center.

The hike itself was a gentle, shady loop.  We saw some interesting mushrooms and trees but not much wildlife (maybe because of the heat, or maybe because of the noisy kids).

We wanted to get ice cream afterward, but the place nearby that looked really good, Country Creamery, didn't open until 3:00.  There was an A&W nearby with a big parking lot, so we gave the kids the option of root beer floats immediately or ice cream later, and we bought a couple of floats.  (The A&W only accepted cash, which seemed very strange.)  The A&W gave us permission to leave the RV there for a little while and we walked down to a nearby Dollar Tree and browsed (in the air conditioning) until 3:00.  Rhonda and Sierra bought folding fans at Dollar Tree, and Sierra's fan wound up causing great distress a couple of times later on the trip when she left it at various locations and we had to search for it!

In my opinion, Country Creamery was worth the wait.  They had interesting ice cream flavors and they were really friendly.  The flavor I got had white chocolate ice cream marbled with raspberry and dark chocolate cups with raspberry filling.  Emily got pumpkin and chocolate, I think.  They had some fun, colorful flavors for kids, and we tasted them, but in the end I think the kids went with more familiar and traditional options.

After our ice cream, we drove to Massachusetts to camp in the Harold Parker State Forest.  We had a reserved space in their campground, and they really charge a lot for non-residents!  It was non-electric, which was unfortunate because of the heat, but at least they did have a water hookup.  Most of us wanted cool showers.  The site was back-in, and without Dad to drive, I had to back in with Emily trying to guide me.  Neither of us has much experience.  There was a playground near our campsite, and the kids played there while I drove the RV forward and backward over and over until we finally got it right and we were in our spot!  Then we leveled the RV, hooked up the water, had dinner, and went to bed, and the whole thing took way longer than we expected and everyone got to bed very late.  But we had the campsite reserved for two nights, so we were looking forward to the next day when we didn't have to move the trailer and we could just focus on being tourists in Massachusetts.

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