Rhode Island - Day 6 - same as yesterday

Crowne Plaza Hotel

Saturday, 6 October 2018

today's route

The temperature last night got down into the 40s, which meant we were pretty chilly when we got up.  Fortunately, Anna and David had sent me a new sweatshirt with MSOE (old family joke) on it for my birthday, and that warmed me right up.  Gracie’s got a good enough coat to handle 40° temps, but for Dexter I needed to turn on the heater.  The propane heater in this RV works pretty well and Dext likes to sit in front of it when it’s on.  A little like standing on the old floor furnaces from when I was a kid.

My first priority today was PetsMart.  I’ve been getting more and more worried about Dexter’s behavior and hoped to talk to the trainer I figured they’d have there for Saturday classes.  Dext is still the same as he’s always been but getting increasing hard for me to control.  Too often he’s not only out of my control but also out of his.  It looks like he lets his instincts take over and refuses to be pulled back into reality.  This happens when he senses wild animals, of course, but also with most dogs he meets.  He’s even started jumping on people again, which he hasn’t done in two years.  And when he gets wound up, sometimes he gets Gracie going to, and that’s when they can put me on the ground and pull me around.

I had to wait awhile for the trainer to show up for work but she was nice about spending time with me.  Anna told me she’d used a choke chain when she was training her bull mastiffs, but she said it had to be worn the right way for it to be effective.  The trainer said, though, that she never recommended one just because it was too easy to get it wrong and hurt the dog.  Instead, she said it sounded like I was telling her that they used to get a lot of exercise and socialization, and they haven’t gotten much at all since we’d moved into the RV last February.  She suggested taking them to day care again from time to time while I’m traveling.

That’s actually something I’ve thought of several times but haven’t felt like I was really in a position to do that, moving around as much as I have been.  But Rhode Island is so small I might be able to do it here, at least, and possibly in the next few states too.  Connecticut isn’t actually huge, and after that are New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware.

The trainer said she wasn’t using one herself but had several clients who used Camp Bow Wow, which she said was fairly nearby.  I looked it up online, and it wasn’t exactly right down the street, but in Rhode Island terms, it was so I went by instead of calling.  They gave me a tour and an application and an appointment for next Wednesday so they can see how my dogs do with other dogs.  It seems like an okay place, but I’m a little worried because they had a couple dozen dogs all together in a play area, and I’m not sure Dexter would do okay with that much unstructured time.  But we’ll see.

From there I got lost but got found again right away (yea for my new Providence map!) and drove back over to East Greenwich.  That’s where my mom was born and lived for most of her life till she married my dad during the war.  The more I drive in this area, and especially the Post Road, the more I realize how much she and I saw together.

I figured out which cemetery her parents are buried in, and which one my Auntie Anna and Uncle Harry are buried in.  I saw the building that 100 years ago was a Dodge dealership (or maybe garage) where my grandfather worked, and the building where my great-grandmother lived with my great-aunt.  And those are just the places along Post Road.  It makes me miss my mom a lot more than I’d expected.

I ended up turning off the road towards Goddard Park.  Momma had a really strong memory of coming over to the park with a friend of hers the day after the Hurricane of 1938 – Momma would have been 16.  They couldn’t believe the damage to the park and, based on the photos I saw in a book Momma had about the hurricane, I can see the damage was stunning.  Oddly, the park faces north onto Greenwich Bay, which itself is protected by Warwick Neck, and it should have been really sheltered from a storm.  But I guess not if the storm’s as bad as this one.

The park is huge and includes a golf course, thick trees, open grassy areas, places for picnics and bike riding, it has an equestrian area with facilities – this is a big park. It's bounded along the road by a stone wall about 3 ½’ tall – dry stacked, with no mortar.

sample tree - many much larger

 The dogs and I walked a bit there.

And back to the hotel parking lot.  Last night I had trouble sleeping, partly because it was cold but mostly because of all the parking lot lights.  But I spent some time studying them and think I’ve figured out where I can park that will get the minimum light possible in that lot.  We’ll see tonight.