A Land of fire and water - Providence, RI - May 2010

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On our way to Boston we've made a couple quick stops in PROVIDENCE, RI. This is one of the smallest states in the US. North to south you drive through the state in less than an hour. Well once again we have the "books" to thank for an event we never would have known about. "WATERFIRE". Now at first you may think - ok what's the catch here because water and fire definitely does not go together? Well this is a form of art that is created every summer in this city. A couple rivers flow through the city so they have these steel baskets set-up in the middle of the river and they dump massive wood logs in the baskets and set them ablaze. The water on fire and some dramatic Bach in the background creates a sort of eerie feeling. There is a lot of smoke around since the entire river is "on fire" so there is that to deal with, but this is one of the more amazing things that you will see in your life. I believe it is done about 30 times a year so check the schedule before you make the trip. Providence is home to Brown University so there is a pretty rowdy area full of college students. We had dinner at SHARK. It had some pretty decent Asian food with a huge fish tank behind the bar. We also had a hit with Nikkie's list. The Liberty Elm restaurant. At first we thought we were in the wrong part of town because it looked a little shady and we missed the place the first time. It is located in an old diner cart. We had the Johnny cakes (a spin on pancakes that we really liked), turkey sandwich (they cook their own turkey so this was really good), clam chowder (on this trip we had clam chowder at 3 different places and this one was the best. It was not as creamy, but it had a lot of chunks of clams so it was just really good).

Well this was a short visit (only a couple hours really) so just crossing one thing off the list is not too shabby I guess. Waterfire was in one of the books so 92 down and 3,230 to go. Long way to go, but we are chipping away.

From a smokey river crossing

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Photos

Waterfire!
The water ablaze in Providence