What did you eat for lunch today?

[7wt]

Today was an awesome day for me. I had a meeting for a grad program that went well so I decided to play hooky the rest of the day and take a road trip. The plan was to head north for lunch in Mystic before hunting down some old roads in Rhode Island, you know just putsing around.

Would you ever stop at a place that looks like this?

Well you would if you knew they had the best fried clams in the world! Seriously, the best you will ever eat. They have been featured on the Food Network and the Travel Channel and for good reason.

Want a bite? You can't have one, mine all mine.

Anyway, once lunch was done I strolled on over to some backroads in Rhode Island. Found some neat trails. I didn't take a lot of pics because I got caught up enjoying the scenery. Here is a couple that don't do this area justice at all.

Then I continued onto an area a little farther northwest and stopped at a cemetery to poke around. I love doing this as you never know just who you will meet.

Today, I met Lt. Rice. He had an interesting story. I tried looking him up online but I keep getting a man I think was his father. I still want to look into it a little more.

The I saw these headstones laying on the rock wall. They must have fallen a while back and nobody knew where the belonged. I couldn't read anything on them as they were pretty weathered.

There is more to the story but I don't have any pics.

 

[Street Wolf]

Just much, much, much, more of it, and I only paid $7. :sombrero:

 

[RU55ELL]

I had hamburgers at the shop. It was a going away thing for one of the procurement specialists.

 

[Ursidae69]

Cool day trip and the truck looks as good as ever. :costumed-smiley-007

 

[Moody]

Good food, great scenery, and history...A+ in my book.

 

[7wt]

I was in the Arcadia management area when I came across a dirt road with a berm pushed up in front if it to make it unpassable. There were a few signs that caught my eye and peaked my curiosity so I had to check it out. They said "ROAD CLOSED" and "UNMAINTAINED ROAD". I was a long slowly descending dirt road that got progressively cross-rutted due to heavy water wash. It was getting pretty rough until a bend in the road where it was all but unpassable. That was when I saw a Saturn 2WD SUV with a note on the windshield saying he went for help. Being that I couldn't go any further, I turned around to see if I could find the guy and help him out. I looked his situation over pretty good and it looked possible to get him out but it was going to be a challenge. He didn't have any front tow points but he did have a 2" receiver in the back so I was thinking I could get him to turn around and I could tow him out backwards. Traction and a bad cross-axle situation was a problem and I didn't like the idea of ripping the guys lower valance off but it would have got him out. It was obvious they guy tried to drive through the rut to get out, in the process he loosened up the ground pretty good.

So armed with a plan I set off looking for the poor guy. I found him at the trail head sitting in a RI Highway Patrol car. The officer looked at me funny as I climbed over the berm rolling down his window as I approached him. I told him that there was some guy stuck down there. He looked at me for a second to survey my disposition before he pointed to the guy in the back seat. Then the officer asked if I had a winch. I told him no but I had plenty of other gear to get the hapless traveler out. He said that was good because there was a tornado warning a couple counties over back in CT and the storm was moving towards us. Nobody else would be available to help for another two hours or so.

I picked up the guy, seemed nice enough in a computer programmer sort of way and drove him back to his car. He informed me that he had been there for about four hours and was starting to get frustrated. I asked him a few questions about what he tried to get out. He just tried driving up hill in a front wheel drive. I asked him if he tried backing out and he looked at me like I was a complete idiot. I told him it would have put more weight on the front tires and he would have had more traction but less visibility. Puzzled still, he explained how he didn't want any damage to his car. He kept harping on it until I got the complete story. Turns out a guy from AAA sowed up in a flat bed but couldn't get down to him so they walked. The AAA guy tried to aggressively drive it out with enough momentum to get through the rough spot. Apparently it make quite the ruckus. After seeing how tentative the guy was I came up with a new plan. I decided to spot him around the wash out as there was enough road on the right side to drive around the bad stuff. That required stacking rocks to get him through a section that looked worse than the cross rut due to the rocks but in reality was the way to go. I gave him a quick lesson in hand signals and started placing rocks in ways to keep his suspension up front as flat as possible. The guy looked scared but I took it easy and kept reassuring him this was going to work but he had to stop when I said to and not be a monkey on the gas. He kept telling me he couldn't see in a shaky voice and I would tell him the only thing he needed to see was me. Well about ten minutes latter he was on his way, he did exactly what he needed to and he placed the Saturn's wheels exactly where they needed to be. Needless to say he was very thankful. I didn't take any pictures because he wasn't in the mindset to "play". It was deadly serious to him but just a game to me. That and it was starting to rain pretty good with loud lightning cracking in the distance so the sooner we got out of there the better. Back at the trail head the guy told the officer that was waiting that I was a genius and built a bridge and he "just drove right out". I was as happy as he was, for some odd reason the officer was even more grateful. As much as I enjoy helping people that are stuck, I am always left with a bad taste in my mouth afterwards. Most of it boils down to the people being scared. They have a way of talking to you like you are going to hook up a chain to the bumper and keep tugging until something breaks. They don't seem to understand that this kind of stuff is a hobby to folks like us. I guess next time I will have to pay more attention to this.

The Arcadia is really pretty.

http://www.riparks.com/arcadia.htm

 

[JakeMate]

Good one you for helping him out. Nice job.

Although it sounds like this guy was harmless, we should always be careful when "helping" people out in the middle of nowhere. I would never hesitate to help someone in need but always keep your own safety in mind when dealing with strangers.

Again, nice job. Did the guy ever say what he was doing out there by himself?

 

[7wt]

The guy was just out for a hike. While I don't regret helping the guy, I will be more careful in the future.

I pulled a lady last winter out of a 5' snowbank along side the highway. She was stuck like Chuck for sure. She must have hit the bank going at least 50 or so as she was a good 100ft offroad. Anyway, after hooking her up and dragging her back to the road there was a little bit of damage done to her Lexus. The front valence was hanging a tad. She started to blame me but the thing was hurting before I came along. She was glad she was out and able to head to work but she wasn't happy about the damage. I informed her that hitting a tall snow bank at highway speeds will do all sorts of damage and that's how it was when I stopped to help her. She had no idea of what the front looked liked as she never opened her door after her off highway excursion. In her defense, she couldn't because snow was up to her windows. That one was something I should have left for AAA. Just not worth the work I put into it. As my pappy told me a long time ago, no good deed goes unpunished.

 

[RU55ELL]

It'll be ribs, beans and tater salad today.

 

[Maximus Ram]

The clams look mighty tasty:drool:
Good karma for you on helping #1:victory:
#2 is the reason folks don't stop and help more these days...people are sue happy and won't be thankful for kind jesters....

 

[RedDog]

A guy at the office had his daughter get married on the weekend. This morning he swung by to drop off a tray of cold cuts, fruit, buns, squares and desserts, etc. Fantastic lunch by surprise out of the blue.

 

[dirty Bakers]

Well I took off to Chino valley AZ to check out a warranty claim. Stopped at the In N Out off the 69. I fixed the warranty problem with a 7/16 wrench and a little tlc/common sense. Love your pics of your lunch break and the story too.

 

[AmericaOverland]

I had watermelon all day in this heat. Tomorrow, I'll have mangoes, and maybe peaches if they are ripe enough.