We had an absolutely gorgeous day for this trip and made the most of it. An even dozen of us set out from the Roger Williams National Memorial shortly after 10. Just as we started riding I noticed a car with two bikes on it and made the correct assumption that they were looking for us, so I directed them to where we were parked and rode back to give them maps and suggest where they could meet us in 15 minutes.

We rode around the Amtrak station, the bottom of the state house and the paths of Riverwalk before exploring the downtown area, which is generally quiet on a Saturday. There is a lot of amazing old architecture here with wonderful details, including fancy brick work, terra cotta and copper domes. There’s also an arcade, the 19^th century version of a mall. From downtown we headed to the waterfront and then rode the narrow sidewalk on the I-195 bridge to get access to the East Bay bike path. This smoothly-paved rail-trail extends some 15 miles toward Bristol, but we only went about three miles, spotting a pair of swans in the bay.

As we recrossed the interstate bridge, we picked up Deirdre Bird, a good friend who lives near Providence and had been visiting a friend in the hospital that morning. Back in the city we headed to Wickenden Street, where we had an hour break for lunch. Some of us had Thai, some Indian, and others pizza or sandwiches. We rode up the gentle grade of Benefit street, which has many of the fine old 18^th century houses in this city. By great good fortune it was RISD’s (Rhode Island School of Design) sidewalk art sale day and a long block was blocked off to cars. Waiting for us was Fran Goldstein, a Boston friend who had arrived late. We slowly walked the bikes through, looking at as much as we could, with a couple of us making minor purchases. The crowds, the music and the international food offerings made one feel like you were in another country for a brief period of time.

We did a lot of climbing to get up onto College Hill, where we rode through the Brown campus. Another spot of luck found us chancing upon a most excellent outdoor production of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. The setting was a grass lawn with a few boulders, with the energetic cast running around and through the audience. We left after about 20 minutes when the audience was asked to move to another "stage" at the opposite end of the lawn, with a couple of the fairies perched some 30 feet up in a tree.