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Waterfall
Last Sunday Teri, Sebastian, my parents, and I all took a ride on the Blackstone Explorer. It was the tenth anniversary of that craft, and to celebrate the occasion they were giving free rides all day.
The Explorer runs tours of the Blackstone river, starting and ending near the Woonsocket waterfall. That's about an eight-minute walk away from our house, as it happens, so we took a stroll over there.
When we got there, though, it turned out that all the free tickets had already been given away; a bunch of people had snarfed them up as soon as the office had opened. There was a standby waiting list, but there were a lot of names ahead of us even on that. We didn't have anything better to do, though, so we sat around to see if there might be space for us on the 3PM tour.
There wasn't.
Okay, how about the 4PM tour?
Nope. And that was the last tour of the day. But when the boat pulled in and the captain and pilot saw all the disappointed people waiting, they decided to add an unplanned 5PM tour. Teri was first in line for tickets, believe me! :D
Sebastian had been sitting around for about two hours by this point; he'd been awfully sweet for most of the day, but he was starting to cry and demanding to be taken "homey". Still, we really wanted to go on the tour, and maybe he'd calm down on the boat. So when it pulled in to dock, we did our best to quiet him and went on board.
It was quite an interesting tour, altogether about a 50-minute ride; I saw sights I'd never known about, amazingly close to our house! Sebastian was pretty difficult, so we kept passing him around and trying to keep him calm. I don't think he spoiled the tour for anyone else, but it was a little distracting for us. Still, it was fun.
Here's a photo I took near the end of the tour. We were turning near the waterfall (a 30-foot drop) and heading into dock. The stone bridge in the photo is one I drive over every morning and night, and I often take Sebastian across it for a stroll and a look at the "stinky waterfall" ("diapy on!"). The Blackstone is a class "C" river, not dead and not absolutely toxic, but still pretty nasty. It used to be a class "D", dead, but has been improving over the years; I fear that if Bush stays in office it will go back to being "D" again, because the hostility of BushCo to the environment is truly astonishing.
Later - Okay, I had the wrong photo up earlier today. The right one's up now, but it might need some explanation. That big green bridge resting on a concrete pillar is actually a walkway over the dam, which was only about 40 or 50 feet away. If you look carefully at the reflection of the water, you can see that it suddenly breaks off - at that point it goes over a roaring 30-foot dam. I'll see if I can take some pictures from the other side, because there don't seem to be any decent ones online.
Incidentally, this waterfall is what gave Woonsocket its name. "Woonsocket" means "Thundermist" in a local native American language.
You get a great view of the falls from the stone bridge, which is also in the photo - but hard to see. The middle of it is blocked by trees, which are on a small island at the base of the falls. You can sort of find the bridge by looking towards the left, and finding the back end of a white car which is driving over the bridge. That car is heading in the direction of our house, which is less than a minute away.
The sidewalk in front of that car (that is, along the closer side of the bridge as I photographed it) is where Sebastian and I stand when we look at the waterfall. Some days it's kind of yellow, but other days it's not so bad.
It was kind of cool to be able to photograph the falls from the opposite side, actually.
The Explorer runs tours of the Blackstone river, starting and ending near the Woonsocket waterfall. That's about an eight-minute walk away from our house, as it happens, so we took a stroll over there.
When we got there, though, it turned out that all the free tickets had already been given away; a bunch of people had snarfed them up as soon as the office had opened. There was a standby waiting list, but there were a lot of names ahead of us even on that. We didn't have anything better to do, though, so we sat around to see if there might be space for us on the 3PM tour.
There wasn't.
Okay, how about the 4PM tour?
Nope. And that was the last tour of the day. But when the boat pulled in and the captain and pilot saw all the disappointed people waiting, they decided to add an unplanned 5PM tour. Teri was first in line for tickets, believe me! :D
Sebastian had been sitting around for about two hours by this point; he'd been awfully sweet for most of the day, but he was starting to cry and demanding to be taken "homey". Still, we really wanted to go on the tour, and maybe he'd calm down on the boat. So when it pulled in to dock, we did our best to quiet him and went on board.
It was quite an interesting tour, altogether about a 50-minute ride; I saw sights I'd never known about, amazingly close to our house! Sebastian was pretty difficult, so we kept passing him around and trying to keep him calm. I don't think he spoiled the tour for anyone else, but it was a little distracting for us. Still, it was fun.
Here's a photo I took near the end of the tour. We were turning near the waterfall (a 30-foot drop) and heading into dock. The stone bridge in the photo is one I drive over every morning and night, and I often take Sebastian across it for a stroll and a look at the "stinky waterfall" ("diapy on!"). The Blackstone is a class "C" river, not dead and not absolutely toxic, but still pretty nasty. It used to be a class "D", dead, but has been improving over the years; I fear that if Bush stays in office it will go back to being "D" again, because the hostility of BushCo to the environment is truly astonishing.
Later - Okay, I had the wrong photo up earlier today. The right one's up now, but it might need some explanation. That big green bridge resting on a concrete pillar is actually a walkway over the dam, which was only about 40 or 50 feet away. If you look carefully at the reflection of the water, you can see that it suddenly breaks off - at that point it goes over a roaring 30-foot dam. I'll see if I can take some pictures from the other side, because there don't seem to be any decent ones online.
Incidentally, this waterfall is what gave Woonsocket its name. "Woonsocket" means "Thundermist" in a local native American language.
You get a great view of the falls from the stone bridge, which is also in the photo - but hard to see. The middle of it is blocked by trees, which are on a small island at the base of the falls. You can sort of find the bridge by looking towards the left, and finding the back end of a white car which is driving over the bridge. That car is heading in the direction of our house, which is less than a minute away.
The sidewalk in front of that car (that is, along the closer side of the bridge as I photographed it) is where Sebastian and I stand when we look at the waterfall. Some days it's kind of yellow, but other days it's not so bad.
It was kind of cool to be able to photograph the falls from the opposite side, actually.
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