Spring Day - Carr's Pond

Karen's Kitchen, Esmond - Click Image for larger view

We did get off to an early start this morning and were at breakfast in Esmond, Rhode Island before 9:00 - this is early for us as you may know by reading this blog. The reason we were in this part of the state was because our grandson had a flying lesson, and I always get a camera rigged in the cockpit to record the fun. Karen's Kitchen was a clean and very friendly place and as you can see on the sign, the home of the Hot Wiener Omelet! I have never heard of a hot wiener omelet before but am a big fan of the Rhode Island Hot Wiener, also known as a New York System wiener. Our waiter was prompt and the coffee was good and of course I had to order the hot wiener omelet. It was just as I imagined, excellent - here'e the recipe - one wiener sliced finely mixed into the omelet and cooked up- I think there was some cheese and onions in the egg mix too - once the omelet is on the plate, it is covered with the meat sauce and

The Mug Shot

raw onion and of course celery salt. All the ingredients to make a great Rhode Island omelet. I told the waiter just how much I enjoyed the omelet and within minutes Karen herself came out and we had a nice long chat about the restaurant, apparent she is getting ready to retire and is selling the place, I hope the new owners keep the Hot Wiener Omelet on the menu. Once we finished up, we made our way toward the airport but had a few minutes to spare so Nana and I stopped in the Lincoln Mall, at Target's and picked up a few thing we needed for home. At the airport I got the camera gear delivered and made plans to drive to T F Greene Airport in Warwick where our grandson was landing for the first time. He is very familiar with take off and landing at the small North Central Airport and this was his first time at a large commercial airport with a very active tower. So Nana and I took off to see if we could find some place along the perimeter of the TF Green airport to video the landing. Most of the area along the outer fence was posted that you couldn't even stop, just keep moving, nothing to see here. . .  but we found a nice place that didn't have signs and parked and walked up the clearing to the fence to await the landing. we had been there about 20 minutes when the police arrived and the first words out of the officer's mouth was 'Are you ISIS?' - He was very thorough though it was obvious what we were doing there, and we almost missed the landing, and the good news is we didn't go to jail.

Crossing

It was about a 15 minute ride down Route 95 to exit 6 and another 5 minutes to find the parking for the pond. I found this place using the AllTrails app on my phone and there seems to be miles of trails in this area. There was a hint of spring in the air, with little wind and temps in the 50's. We planned to walk around the pond and a quick glance at the app and we were off. Here is a word to pay attention to...a quick glance at a map could be less than helpful. What we thought would be a two mile hike turned into an an almost four mile hike. I thought I saw that the path continued around the pond but at the far end, over a mile into the walk, there was a (beaver?) dam that made a backwater that took us further afield and added a couple of miles to our walk, which was fine as it was a beautiful day..it was just unexpected. There are many many trails here that cross each other and

go off in all directions, and they seem well used. You can see by the picture here that some of the rocks seem to have been visited by younger people who thought they would look better painted. We saw many signs of late night parties around campfires along the trails. It is an easy access place and lots to explore. It seems as though it is well maintained although many of the recent trees that have fallen across the trail have not been removed yet but there were many that had fallen earlier in the year that had been cut for easy passage. We saw some Canada Geese on the pond and heard a lot of seemingly invisible  birds . We came across lots of little flowers - yellow, purple and white and a curious little plant that had waxy leaves and big red berries. I spent quite some time searching the internet (because the internet knows everything) and I think they are Wintergreen Berries.

Here is a picture of the plant with it's bright red berries. If you know what it is let me know..but I think it's Wintergreen Berries. As we made our way back toward the car we crossed over the bridge on the road we drove in on, crossed the road and hiked the forest on the other side of the road back to the car. This was a great place to spend some time. There were many other hikers, people fishing the pond from the bank and from canoes and kayaks and people out with their dogs. We met a man with a beautiful boxer deep in the woods. This was a fine Sunday walk. And now, more pictures.

Hot Wienie Omelet

Crossing another stream

The dam that foiled our plans

Pappa crossing

the pond

At the finish

Our route