robwergeontheroad

Biked this afternoon to Roger Williams Park, a few blocks from Ingrid's place. Hot and humid...but also very green. No need for underground sprinkler systems in this climate...the ground is muddy from last night's rain.

The parkland was donated to Providence in 1871 by the great-great-great granddaughter of Roger Williams. Betsy Williams was the last descendent to own the property, the final part of the land which Roger purchased from the chief of the Narragansett tribe in 1638. For which he had been severely criticized by other settlers who believed the land should be taken from these "rude unChristian savages." But then Williams who first postulated the separation of religion and government and who welcomed all settlers to this colony, Quakers, Jews, Baptists, was a man of strong conviction.

I bike past a cemetery to get to the park...lots more cemeteries in Rhode Island than in Colorado but then people lived and died here for two hundred years longer...

The road curves down past a statue...placed in remembrance of a 19th century businessman by his grandson...but what is the story here? Some sort of allegory but hard to figure out exactly what....

Then the road curves down by one of the seven lakes that make up the park's 480 acres.

Then life intrudes...coming around a corner...a burnt out car, two young women somewhat shaken, an officer calling in the incident. Apparently the car caught on fire rounding that same curve just a bit before I did...

Then back through along the road, through some of the forested areas (the park was designed by a landscape architect in the 1880s...around the time of Central Park...when cities felt the need to "open the lungs of the city to Nature")...

And then in the distance a white marble temple...reminded me of the aesthetic ideal of the great lawns of English homes which probably inspired this scene...