Welcome to my new blog! Here I'm posting dispatches from my adventures all over the world. I'm currently typing these words from a library in the small town of Bristol, Rhode Island.
I will try and explain in the next few paragraphs how I came to be here. After returning from my sailing, hitchhiking, hippy bus, freight hopping trip to Southern Mexico for the end of the world party (don't ask), I spent an all too short three weeks back home in Port Angeles. At the end of March, I flew out to New York City to watch my brother Sam play with his high school orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Flying would not be my preferred mode of transport, but time was short and I needed to make it in time for the performance on Easter Sunday.
New York City is always a crazy blur of activity, where far too many people are packed into a very small space and somehow manage to not kill each other except on occasion. It was fantastic to play tourist, if you will, for a brief period of time and enjoy the city from the comfort of a hotel room. The voice in the back of my head was whispering to enjoy it while I can. We watched some fantastic shows, ate far too expensive food, and passed time doing things that tourists do when they come to New York. Before we knew it the day of the performance at Carnegie Hall had come.
Somehow, despite reports from my brother and friends in the orchestra that they weren't ready (which seemed all too familiar from four years before when I played at Carnegie) they pulled off a fantastic performance and were definitely the highlight of the show. And they managed all that with the grand finale being the theme to Pirates of the Caribbean. Actually I quite like Pirates...
And so before I knew it the family was flying back to Washington and I was alone in a very large city. I enjoy cities, but can only take them for so long before needing to return to some kind of wilderness, where I feel at home. I decided to take the train as far as it goes into Connecticut, to a town called New Haven. All I remembered about Connecticut from my visit when I was 12 was that is was rural and pleasant compared to NYC, and that there were lots of boats there. I figured if I started there, the hitchhiking would be good and I'd be able to make my way slowly to Boston, where I would meet up with a friend. Little did I know that the town I was headed to was a cesspool of crime and racism and was considered the third most dangerous city in the country after Flint, Detroit and St. Louis.
After one very long and cold night in New Haven, during which nothing notable happened, I continued east toward Boston. In Mystic Seaport, I took some time to look at the boats (I couldn't help myself) and to check out the historic port. By the time I got to the Connecticut--Rhode Island border, I was really starting to like the state.
In the town of Westerly, appropriately named because it's the most western community in Rhode Island, I stopped by the library to use the internet and charge my phone. Here I met an incredible musician named Mary who invited me to her home for lunch and to play some music. I ended up spending two days in the town, and became great friends with Mary, her husband Judas, and their fantastic friends Joe, Glenn and Michelle. They took me to all the best sights in the region, and we went on several hikes as well as to the beach and a lighthouse. Then we watched a terribly graphic and gory movie called Dead Alive. I think the description explains the film perfectly:
Lionel, a Mama's boy has the unwanted honor of having to look after his overbearingly evil mother who gets bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey. She gets sick and dies, at which time she comes back to life, killing and eating dogs, nurses, friends, and neighbors.
Fortunately, I made it through the film alive and was able to continue on my journey, slightly shaken but nonetheless unharmed. Joe, Michelle and Glenn took me to a show in Providence where we listened to some local garage bands. Then they returned to Westerly and I took a bus the next day down to Bristol.
After a day I took a ferry to Prudence Island and spent two nights camping out on an incredibly beautiful beach that I had to myself almost all of the time. I'm now back in Bristol, preparing to hit the road north soon. So far, it's been a great return to the East Coast and I can't wait to see what adventures are in store.
