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This was a long weekend. I was off Friday, so that made a three day weekend.
But, of course, Thursday was a holiday, so it was really a four day weekend.
But I also took a vacation day on Wednesday (because of our Thanksgiving
Eve party), so that made it a five day weekend! (Gee, too bad all weekends
can't be five day weekends!)
On Friday we (Nancy, Jill, and me) got together with Nancy's sister Clara and Clara's daughter Kaitlin and went to the Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge.
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If you look below at the Google satellite picture, on the left side of
the picture, there is a long thin peninsula pointing south. The above photograph
was taken from just a bit below the middle of that peninsula.
(Yes, in Rhode Island a body of water that is easily a mile across at its
widest point -- as with Trustom Pond -- can be called a pond. There are
several "ponds" that are larger than Trustom Pond.)
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There is an observation platform at the tip of that peninsula -- with Nancy
and Clara looking through the telescopes that are mounted there. (Clara
is looking through the one mounted at child height.) That line dividing
water from sky is the narrow slice of sand and land (a "barrier beach)
that separates the pond from the ocean
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Jill, Clara, Kaitlin, and me...
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This photograph is partly because I found this tree to be fascinating and
partly because it is a reminder that Rhode Island is a terminal moraine,
the dirt and rocks dumped at the end of a melting glacier, a souvenir of
the ice ages. Farmers here grew great crops of rocks -- that's why they
edged their fields with stone walls.
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This picture is of a small pond called "Farm Pond" -- because,
back when much of this nature preserve (that is, the land part of it) was
farmland, this was the pond used to supply drinking water for the livestock.
(That is, this is a fresh water pond; Trustom Pond is a salt water pond
-- the largest undeveloped salt pond left in the state.)
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This view grabbed my attention and I had to snap this photograph.
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That night Nancy and I got together with her sister Karen, Karen's husband Bob, and their daughter Melissa and went out for dinner at the Matunuck Oyster Bar, a seafood restaurant that has its own oyster farm. Nancy and I have been there before but never inside for dinner, just on their outside deck for lunch. (For example) This is a photo of my dinner: Seared scallops with wild mushroom risotto,
truffle butter, and roasted vegetables. |
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Jill did not come with us (the only seafood she likes is fried calamari)
because she was working on baking a cake a 1st birthday (a friend's son)
and she was also working on sewing new curtains to bring back to Ottawa.
(This was a huge cake, easily two and a half feet wide.)
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Nancy and Jill got some shopping done. (Actually, so did Jill and I -- I got her a set of four new snow tires.
Ottawa has more snow than south county Rhode Island.) And we've sat in front of the fireplace and watched
several episodes of
Lost Girl (on Jill's laptop -- the show won't be broadcast here in the states until
sometime this winter). And Nancy and I got to the YMCA yesterday to do
a full Nautilus circuit workout (plus the treadmill for her and the stairstepper
for me). We had slacked off on that and have to get back into a regular
pattern of workouts.
And now the long weekend is over.
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