Block Island, Rhode Island

Block Island, is off the coast of, and part of, Rhode Island. It's also kind of off the coast of New York (Long Island); I included the above map to demonstrate where it is.

The reason for our trip was twofold: a wedding and a weekend away. I won't say much about the wedding, other than:

- it was on the beach and an hour late, so sunburn was common, and

- it is not comfortable to be at a wedding where it seems the bride and groom are trying to conceive their third child during their first dance.

As for the weekend away part, that bit was good.

Block Island is pretty large, but not so large that you would call it a big island. Above is the view

from one of the breakwaters that forms the harbor where the ferries from the mainland come in. Left is the on the main street. The buildings you see in the shot make up the main street, and pretty much entire "downtown" section of New Shoreham, the islands main town. There is one street back from that main street, which is where we stayed, and that's about it.

While you can bring cars from the mainland a lot of people get around on bikes or "mopeds". I say "mopeds" because I always imagined mopeds as being a bike with some kind of additional motor, where as mopeds on the island were scooters/Vespa style vehicles which were expensive to rent ($40 for 1 hour plus $2 for gas).

We had great weather while we were there - it was cold during the morning on Saturday, the wind was also adding to the coolness, but it warmed up in the afternoon. Cloudless nights and very little in the way of people meant that stars were quite visible which was also cool.

Places of note/highlights for me were:

- Mohegan Bluffs - cool beach at the bottom of some bluffs at the south of the island. It was the site of a battle between the native native Americans and some invading Mohegan native Americans. The Mohegans were forced back and fell off the cliff to their deaths.

- Southeast Light - the lighthouse at the south of the island was built in the 1800s, but was moved in the 1990s because erosion was threatening the spot that the lighthouse stood on.

- Crescent Beach - a stretch of beaches that was long and reminded me of beaches in Australia.

To wrap up here is a photo of me and my rented bike.

Edit: Liz took the Mohegan Bluffs photo. The map is from Wikipedia.