Rhode Island - Day 10 - dogs & heights

Oak Leaf Family Campground
Wednesday, 10 October 2018

today's route

Today was a day of heights (RI's highest and lowest points) and doggie daycares.

I suddenly noticed that Jerimoth Hill, Rhode Island's highest point, was just right down the road from my campground, so that had to be the first stop.

Jerimoth Hill - all of 812' high

As you can tell, Rhode Island is not a mountainous state.  Of course, unlike many states, its lowest point is sea level, so any elevation is starting from scratch.  But let's face it, the mountains are somewhere else in New England, but they sure aren't here.

Plenty of hills, though.  I notice it every day as I drive around.

Where I'd stopped to take this photo was a pull-out area, made by countless cars before me, but not very deep.  So there I was trying to turn around to go back to the highway I wanted (you do understand I use the word "highway" meaning a 2-lane road with no shoulders but with a state route number, don't you?), and backing and forthing, and just about had us set up and waiting to be sure no cars were coming over the hill to surprise me when I turned across the street, when a police car pulled up behind me and wanted to know if I was in trouble.  So I explained that I'd come to this area about 10 or 15 years ago with my mom, who was from Rhode Island, and now she was dead I'd come back in her memory, and of course I got a little teary so he probably thought I was a nut but he immediately stepped out into the road to stop any traffic and let me out, which was really a very sweet thing to do, I thought.  Though he may have just been wanting to get rid of me, or possibly to prevent the accident he thought I'd cause if left on my own.  Still, very nice.

The dogs and I had an 11:45 appointment at Camp Bow Wow (sorry, but the name makes me gag), as a free evaluation to see how they'd do in day care.  We got there early and they took us early, which I appreciated.  It didn't take long.  Dexter flunked, in their opinion.  They start with the 2 dogs in an empty room and then add 1 dog, and then a 2nd dog, and then a 3rd dog, and so on, until they ended up with so many dogs I couldn't pick out either of mine on their monitor.  They said he was doing fine at first, but after about the first 8 or 10 dogs, he snapped at a couple of dogs - and they couldn't see any reason why.  As far as I could tell, they may have missed whatever it was that set him off because of the total mob scene, but they did see him snap.  Even though they knew he wasn't trying to bite, it still made them nervous and they decided not to chance it.  Totally understandable, really.

They gave me the names of a couple of day cares that they thought might have smaller groups that maybe Dext would do better in.  One of them I'd already called and made an appointment for tomorrow, but I decided to go on down today, just in case they could fit us in.

This 2nd place is called The Gnarly Dog, down near Point Judith in the southern part of RI.  I told them what the problem seemed to be - that both dogs had, in our former lives, had plenty of exercise and socialization, but we'd been on the road for 9 months and Dexter was jumping out of his skin with lack of both and I really needed to get him into a day care.  But there was no point in lying to them so I told him exactly what Dext's behavior had been like in the various day cares he'd been to.  So with that orientation, of course they accepted him with open arms.  No, they said okay, thanks for the info, come back tomorrow at the scheduled time and we'll see how he does.

And I found yet a different route back to the campground.  I think I'm starting to get the hang of how to find the roads I need to get where I'm going in this state.  (Right, that'll be the day.)  You wouldn't think these little stops would take much time, but they did, and besides, most of the roads I'm driving on have a speed limit of 40 mph (they may be state routes but they are, after all, 2 lanes and no shoulders).  And besides, I'm actually driving from far southeast RI to far northeast RI, and that's not nothing, even in Rhode Island.