Water, fire, music, and a lot of missed hills - by Robin

A gondola at Waterfire

We're a long way from Providence.  A long way from Friday night's free concert at Waterplace Park, from the crowded shore of Easton's Beach in Newport, from the winding East Bay Bike Path, and from the simple, but lovely art project, Waterfire along the river walk in Providence.  We're a little over half way home as I write this post, sitting in a hotel room somewhere in Pennsylvania.  So I'll have to back up a bit in my own mind to recap the last couple of days.  I promise to keep it short and sweet because I know this blog is suppposed to be about a bike ride, and there was only one easy 29 mile ride on Friday.

View from a bench at the end of the
East Bay Bike Path

Friday morning was perfect riding weather, and we hopped on a 14.5 mile trail at India Point Park in Providence. Winding through marshes, across wooden bridges, past ice cream and fruit stands, and along sailboat speckled bays, I was not surprised to see bikers, runners, walkers, and skaters of all ages all along the path in both directions. At the end of the trail, we stopped for lunch on the patio of a water side restaurant, where I watched, but was unable to photograph, a seagull fish a live crab out of the water for its lunch. Patios are best when you've been cycling.  We knew we'd be less likely to offend other restaurant patrons. 


Young the Giant rocks out at a free concert



Waterplace Park in Providence has a stage set up along the a river walk with tiered concrete seating in the hillside just opposite.  Perfect for the concert we attended Friday night and the Waterfire art performance we came back to see on Saturday night.  Young the Giant is an up and coming alternative band from California. We only knew one song, but the entire concert was fantastic.  You can't beat live music anyway. 

Waterfire occurs on Saturday nights throughout the summer, and we were fortunate enough to be here for it this weekend.  Over 80 bonfires are set up on the river downtown, and after dark, they light them.  Prerecorded music from around the world plays through the night as the fires burn.  A variety of boats pass through the central section of the river walk and around the fires, including a gondola and a boat carrying a bare-chested man twirling fire. 

Not a lot to do but watch and take pictures, but the simplicity of the artistic event seemed a fitting way to end the trip we've been on.  I know it's been anything but simple putting up and tearing down camp each day at 10 different campgrounds.  Packing and unpacking; keeping up with laundry; shopping and cooking; cleaning up dishes in plastic buckets filled with cold water; these were all tedious tasks.  But living without the distractions of television and having limited access to technology allowed our family to be fully present with one another in a way that we seem to slip away from when we are at home and have all of these weapons at our disposal.  I hope when we get back we continue to turn off the televisions and cell phones and computers from time to time and interface with each other in ways as meaningful as they have been on this trip.  Simplicity.  Fire.  Water.  Wind.  Human-powered forward motion.  Mindfulness and focused attention. 

Now we're in post-vacation driving-induced stupor.  The motion of riding in a vehicle always puts me to sleep, but occasionally today I woke up long enough to admire the view.  If you've been following, you may recall that a stomach virus caused us to cancel part of our riding on the way out here, so we skipped the Pennsylvania portion of our trip.  Driving through today, I took a look at the terrain and then at the map and realized what we missed was a whole lotta mountains.  "David?  It's a good thing we ended up skipping this.  We might have quit on you much earlier than we did."  Yeah, next time we'll take more time to plan the trip ahead of time.  I guess the lack of a clear plan all the time and the spontaneous day to day decisions we've made (totally not in my disposition to live like this ordinarily - I'm a planner) just made this whole trip more of an adventure.  I hate to see it all end, but I do look forward to sleeping in my own bed again. 

We told the kids that we might just camp on the way back.  West Branch State Park in Ohio sure was a great place to stay.  They looked sour about the whole thing.  Couldn't believe we would want to unpack everything we'd worked so carefully to pack last time we camped.  Any of you familiar with the band The Thumbnuts will find it amusing that the kids were singing at breakfast, "I got sent to camp.  I didn't like that.  I got sent to camp... I didn't like that..."  As I've said before, they have bad attitudes.  I hope that one day they'll look back on this adventure and realize its worth.  It may well be our last family ride.

A great tip from our friend Jed led us to
the Newport Creamery - Awful good shakes!

Alex enjoys the waves at Easton's Beach, Newport