And now for the Rhode Island portion of my vacation. We went to Rhode Island in the middle of the first week I was off. Molly and Liza left on Weds., I took that day to get my life in order (or something resembling that). I paid bills, straightened up my house, tried to mow my lawn (mower wouldn't start) and visited Ken (took my fish tank to him so he'd have company while I was away). I left Thursday morning. We had a great time in RI together, fell into a very nice, very peaceful routine at my mother's house. Every morning we'd greet each other, have coffee or tea together and discuss what each of us would like to do during the day. Molly's answer was always the same "I'd like to swim in the ocean today." Most days I went with her but I skipped a few days. The dogs were NOT peaceful and presented some real problems. Right when I arrived they ran out in to the road, and traffic on my mother's road travels faster than on my road by a long shot. Fortunately there were only nice people on the road that day and everyone stopped and waited for us to round them up. One guy tried to woo them into his truck but they wouldn't get in ("Heck no, we've been in the car for 6 hours, we just want to say hello"). It was nerve-wracking and awful and sort of set the tone for the visit: they escaped every chance they got. Liza has a dog pen and we tried to limit them to that, but sometimes Tess would dash out the front door when someone opened it. The last night I was there she ran off at midnight and Molly grabbed her, having heard me calling her in the darkness. HONESTLY! Those dogs!
Anyway, Rhode Island was very successful and relaxing. I read a lot of books, which I never seem to find the time or inclination to do.