July 6, Sunday – Bystander

Saturday was spent just hanging out around the old state park cleaning house and the Jetta. This morning I decided to check out the village of Galilee, which is about the size of La Conner, my home town. Block Island, which lies thirteen miles off shore, has a ferry service to Galilee. The small vehicle ferry carries about 30 cars and because the ferry is ocean going with a sharp bow, all the cars are required to back up and into the ferry. The ferry I watched loading was famous because it was involved in a collision with a Coast Guard buoy tender just five days before and had a large dent in her bow stem to prove it. In the newspaper article it said that a boat appeared out of the dense fog to the ferry’s left. Both boats were at the time of the collision were going very slowly. The article also mentioned that 2,000 pounds of sea food on board that was supplying the island for the long weekend had to be toss out due to the long time of the accident investigation. I saw the bow bump as it loaded cars.
I wandered down to the small Coast Guard Station situated on main street just in time to see their crew jump on their 25 footer and blast out with blue lights and siren. I was interested in the operations because of my work as the Trainer for the Skagit Bay Search and Rescue. This was the beginning of my 2 and a half hour watch as activity hummed around the station. Emergency vehicles were everywhere on the street. Here’s the run down:
1. 8 year old girl fell out of a two story window on Block Island - Coast Guard transported from the island to the station transferred to fire rescue
2. Girl fell off of a horse on Block Island and was transferred on the high-speed passenger ferry and transferred to a fire engine.
3. Boat explosion with two burn victims transported by private boat escorted by CG to the station. Transferred to fire rescue.

At one point there were two fire engines, two fire department ambulances and an Environmental Police vehicle on the street in front of the station.
I could see that our search and rescue team needs to practice stretcher transfers from boat to dock and up the ramp.
It was a busy morning for me keeping track of things.
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July 4, Friday – Changes

Today Caitlin is to leave. We spent our last day together touring the west side of Narragansett Bay and sitting on a rock jetty eating lunch from a small roadside stand. Caitlin is such a wonderful, competent person with an excellent grasp of reality. Our talks were filled with discussions of family and global concerns. I’m so proud of her. I am so blessed.
At two o’clock she loaded her small pack into the VW and we drove the 45 minutes to the Providence airport and as quickly as it began six days before, it ended and I was alone again on Ron’s Circle Tour.
When I returned to the park, everyone one was in a festive mood; party lights and campfires; food tables and lawn games. At dusk I thought I would walk down to the small hill in the park that had a trail to its flat top. It would give a good view of the local fireworks. Everyone else had the same idea so I quickly joined the fifty plus folks on the top and contributed to the merrymaking. Every small town on the bay was trying to out do the other. For 180 degrees fireworks filled the air. I was not alone.

July 3, Thursday – Mystic

The drive from Voluntown, Connecticut to Galilee, Rhode Island was short however Caitlin and I made a seven-hour stop over at Mystic Seaport. This somewhat commercial development got its start in 1926 and has grown to a whole village centered on a turn of the century shipping town with three beautiful tall ships with numerous smaller ones. The non-profit has brought in historic buildings that were associated with the maritime services. We not only walked the ships and the harbor but also learned a great deal attending the demonstrations, too.
Both of us were exhausted from standing and walking all day as we headed out for Fishermen’s Memorial State Park on Judith Pond at the village of Galilee.
We were amazed at the 200 site layout of the park with every available site taken except the one that I had reserved the week before. The park was Anytown, USA; folks and families were packed in for the three day 4th of July weekend; flags, coolers, kids on bikes and dogs. Caitlin and I walked part of the park and saw only a half a dozen vehicles from out of the New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts area. It was time to hunker down and wait out the weekend.

July 2, Wednesday – Relaxation

This day was our day to be together with no agenda. Caitlin talked with Harold; I worked on my blog. We took a “break” from these hard tasks and drove to Buttonwood Farm to their roadside stand to buy homemade ice cream. After an outstanding dinner with the Trust group, we devoured the sweets.

July 1, Tuesday – My Birthday

Caitlin made me a breakfast fit for a guy turning (hmmmm) 67!! Today was going to be a challenge both in driving and navigating – Newark, New York City, New Haven. During the day we both felt the pressure. The travel day started out with a tour of the Clinton, New Jersey. Caitlin wanted us to drive across the old bridge near the mill dam but as we approached a sign announced that there was a weight limit of 6,000. With our 20,000 pounds we would have made a big splash so we pass the bridge and ended up in the Red Mill parking lot – dead end, it was. And not a prayer of turning around so for the first time (I knew it would come sometime) we had to quickly unhitch the VW, turn each vehicle around and reconnect. Now wasn’t that fun??
Unlike the Los Angeles Basin, New York City has been around a long time enabling it to make a jumbled mess out of the highway layouts which in turn kept Caitlin calling out, “Stay to port; go to starboard; take the next exit.” (Caitlin had difficulty using left/right; we spoke the same language.) We soon hit the George Washington Bridge with the masses and I stopped traffic at the toll booth because I needed CPR when I found out that the cost was $32 to drive across the damn bridge over the Hudson River. Hell, the Chesapeake Bay/Tunnel at seventeen miles long was $28. And another thing – gas in New York was $4.35 a gallon when in next-door New Jersey it was $3.96.
Moving right along – when we reached the great state of Connecticut, home of my early youth, names started to sound familiar. Caitlin suggested that we get off the freeway and travel the Merritt Parkway. “I remember we use to drive that as a kid.” What a relief from the trucks and the parkway was beautifully lined with trees. We went shooting under an old stone bridge and we both explained at the same time, “Man, THAT was low!” We both needed to stop and eat so I pulled into a visitor center but saw no space for us so started to pull out when a man on the side yelled at us to get off the parkway. What? “You can’t be here!” You’re too heavy and too tall” Yea, right!! “Take the next exit.” Got it!! And we put our tail between our legs and scooted off the parkway into a residential area and finally made it back to the freeway thankful that we didn’t lose the top of the RV.
We exited at New Haven and I was on a journey to find where our family, not my Dad’s, lived from when I was for my first ten years. I was seeking Woodbridge and had not been there in 58 years.
We dropped the RV in a mall parking lot and went exploring in the VW. My memories of Woodbridge were wonderful; horses; sledding, hiking and camping but my education was a challenge. I hated to read at the very beginning. I didn’t find out until graduate school that I was dyslexic as was my Father, brother and sister. To compensate for this I have an amazing photographic memory. I was telling Caitlin, “Around this bend should be the town hall and a New England church on the green.” Down the hill was the ballpark. (Still there) And there was the house sitting on the Wepawaug River. We pulled in but no one was home so I left a note and took pictures of the spread. I showed Caitlin where my bedroom window was. I have never experienced this before but have always heard about it. Everything looked so small from what I remembered as a lad. The pond below the house was suppose to be Olympic size was now just square yards. The sledding hill was just a bump. After the required photos, we headed back when suddenly I cried, “There’s Ed Fellow’s farm!!” The house and barn still stood. This is where we spent a lot of our childhood. One memory was in winter hitching up one of our horses to the sleigh and going out on the war-deserted highway. We would tie sleds off the back of the sleigh and we would ride there while my brother would stand on the back sleigh runners and hold onto the seat back of the sleigh. I was envious that he was big enough so he could stretch one foot from one runner to the other.
It all happened too fast; we arrived; looked around; took pictures then left. I would think of it as a dream that I had.
It was late and all I could wrap my mind around was stopping for the night at Harold’s. We drove through Lyme, Connecticut famous for the site where the disease was first described. Caitlin had just been told that Harold had contracted the disease, the same disease my sister Rebecca has been fighting for years.
Harold lived inland of Interstate 95, which is like Interstate 5 on the west coast, with a group of people near Voluntown, called Voluntown Peace Trust. The trust owns a farm with 57 acres and a wonderful house built in 1850. “For nearly fifty years this land has been the site of nonviolence training and action, cooperative living and equity based economics.” (from their pamphlet) I was thoroughly impressed with the scope of the place and the massive organic gardens. I wish them well.

June 30, Monday – Always Searching

It was time to move again. I was getting way too comfortable in my parking lot. But I wanted to try one last time to find my Father’s house on Hilldale Road. This would be my third attempt and regretfully had no better information. Caitlin and I drove every alley and peeked at every house and did not find family.
But we knew where to find national history so we hooked the rigs up, pulled anchor and said goodbye to Swarthmore College as we motored to Valley Forge and subjected ourselves to the beginnings of our country. We toured the farmhouse that was the headquarters for George Washington. The house held 24 officers plus Martha. We climbed up the stairs that they walked and saw where they slept. (Isn’t that a famous quote?) The rooms were set up just as they might have been in 1770’s. On our way back to the car (Valley Forge is a huge park so we dropped the RV parking area and took the land dinghy. So convenient!!) we stopped at one of the many benches that we had seen both in Philadelphia and here where professional storytellers exhibited their craft called, “Once Upon A Nation”. This man was good; our small group participated and laughed. Worthwhile stop.
The joy of having Caitlin on board is multifaceted; my daughter, road buddy and navigator par excellent. She set up some wonderful back road traveling. At one point we were traveling along the Delaware Canal, which my family has ties to but will have to wait until I get back to find out what it was. But pictures were taken.
Our camp was outside the delightful village of Clinton, New Jersey with millpond and two mills. We stayed at Spruce Run State Park and for the first time on my Circle Tour sat outside for supper and long talks. The diminished temperature/insect combination allowed such pleasures. And choreographed firefly dance was first rate.

June 29, Sunday – Family!

5:30 in the morning found me outside of the Philadelphia Airport picking up Caitlin, my eldest. She had flown across the continent in ten hours what has taken me four months to drive. What a joy for me to see her, a reunion!! An hour later we were both stretched out for naps in Snee-Ooosh because we were going to meeting that morning. I was so pleased that Caitlin wanted to attend Darby Quaker Meeting. The group of Quakers that gathered at the huge1802 meeting house was small. At its peak 150 years ago it drew 200 Friends. But today there’re were nine of us and two children. Two of our groups had two generations and one group with three generations present. As I sat in silence I was aware of the family history that surrounded me. At least four generations of my family worshipped here. In fact one of my relatives had donated the land on which the meeting house was built. This is was the first time that I had been here even though I have been a member of the meeting for fifty-two years. These were truly my roots, my people. And I was the first Shrigley since my Father left the area as a youth. I felt blessed in the silence.
After meeting one of the members took Caitlin and I out to lunch but the conversation never really evolved because John Child was worried about his parents who were to join us. They never showed up; we found out much later that they were involved in a minor automobile accident. My seeking a bond with a follow Quaker again was thwarted.
John had ridden with us to the restaurant so after lunch we dropped him off downtown (Central City, as they call it). Caitlin, the traveler, said, “Let’s see the Independence Mall area” so we trooped to join the masses. She and I shared what I had seen a couple of days before so I could be her guide.
Not only was Caitlin becoming acquainted with history but also geography. The west coast is so easy to figure out; east coast is convoluted. I showed her on the national map where we were and where she would fly out of at Providence, Rhode Island. She studied the map and exclaimed, “You mean we drive through Connecticut? My friend Harold lives in Connecticut!!” After several phone calls, we were going to see Harold.
At dusk we were ready for bed. History had cloaked us both nationally and directly.