Thank you Mr. Jello.......

6:31 am - Friday - September 28th - Smithfield, Rhode Island (I've been wanting to type that for a very, very, very long time now) - Just 14 miles northwest of Providence - 58º F, 89% humidity, wind 7 mph out of the north by northeast......heavy cloud cover, raining with a forecast high for today of 58º F......wow, at 6:31 am we have already reached the high temperature for today!

We changed our view on Thursday.  We had intended to only drive about 100 miles south on I-89 to the Elks Lodge in Lebanon, NH, but I get ahead of myself.  As opposed to Wednesday, Thursday was an exceptional day for driving.....

.....the views were big, and long, which is rare, in my experience, for the northeast.....

.......TLE caught this picture of some local foliage along our morning route......the color is beginning to appear, and was more obvious than our photos could capture.....

.....we cruised southward on I-89 enjoying the views, and loving being on the move once again after 5 days in Burlington.  We stopped at a Rest Area about 55 miles into our 100 mile day to take a break.  While we were stopped I checked the weather for the next few days and saw that there was a 100% chance of rain Friday all along our route to Rhode Island.  The total distance to the Elks Lodge in Rhode Island was around 281 miles at the beginning of our day, and we still had over 225 miles to go.  That is way further than we traditionally travel in one day in the Newell, and the last 50 would be in heavy traffic areas around Boston.  Nonetheless, we made a decision to make the entire drive to Rhode Island Thursday to avoid driving in the rain.  Heavy traffic is bad enough in a 40,000 lb. vehicle, but heavy traffic AND rain around Boston is something I had no interest in experiencing firsthand.  Had we planned better we would have left Burlington much earlier than 9:30 am to be sure we got through the Boston traffic before 3 pm, but we didn't.  In spite of knowing we would be circumnavigating Boston between 3 and 5 pm smack dab in the middle of 'rush hour' we forged ahead anyway.

But, first things first......we needed to dump our black and gray tanks after 5 days in Burlington, as we would have no sewer connection at the Elks Lodge in Smithfield, RI, nor a dump station.  Finding a place to dump that is easily accessible along I-89 is difficult at best.  I did find a Vermont State park near White River Junction called Quechee Gorge State Park where we could dump, but it was 2.5 miles off the Interstate.  Unfortunately that was our best option.  Secondly, we needed to take on diesel fuel.  We haven't 'paid the rent' since May 12th, and we were down under 1/2 tank, which is not bad, but it I knew as we proceeded further south it would only get more expensive, in Vermont the going price for diesel seems to be $3.19.....in fact this seems to be the going rate in most of New England.  Further south I was seeing prices in the $3.45 range.

We arrived in White River around 11:30 am and proceeded directly to Quechee Gorge State park to dump.  It cost us $15, but the dump was one of the nicer ones we have used over the years.  Everything was in good working order, which is rare......

Quechee Gorge State Park dump station

.....we were in and out in about 30 minutes and on our way back to the Interstate.  We had noticed  a Mobil Oil fuel station as we exited the Interstate with a posted diesel price of $3.19/gallon.....of course.  We decided to take on fuel there.....the station is directly across the street from the southbound entrance to I-89.....perfect.

We ended up taking on 114 gallons of diesel, and it took close to 45 minutes....we had a very, very slow pump!  Nevertheless, we were on our way south once again just before 1 pm with an estimated ETA of 4:00 pm in Smithfield, RI.....at that point we had about 181 miles to go to our destination......

.....we actually made good time on I-89, and I-93, and with about 45 miles to go on I-93 we were finally coming to the I-95 exchange......I-95 would take us to I-295, and into Rhode Island.  Then the traffic just came to a stop about 2 miles before the transition road.....it took us close to 30 minutes to clear the interchange, and then the traffic on I-95 was stop and go for 3 miles....another 30 minutes before the traffic began to flow again, and then it completely stopped two more times before we covered the remaining 11 miles to I-295.  By the time we merged on to I-295 our ETA had ballooned to 5:45 pm, and that is the time we arrived at the Elks Lodge....about 15 minutes before sundown......that was one long day.....8 hours and 15 minutes to cover 281 miles.

 This is how it was the last time we passed through the Boston area

Rhode Island....at last!

They have two water/electric sites at the Smithfield, RI Elks Lodge and we snagged the last one.  They are both back in sites, and there was not enough length in the site for us to leave the trailer attached to the Newell so we had to drop it on the other side of their rather large parking lot......

......we quickly backed into our site, hooked up to the 30 amp electrical, and then sat down to breath a collective sigh of relief, and to rejoice in the fact we would not being doing that drive in the rain on Friday.  I as sit here Friday morning composing today's missive it is raining, and should continue raining most of the day......we made the right decision to arrive here on Thursday!

Thanks for stopping by!

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