Blueways and Greenways

In March 2000, several months before I returned to Rhode Island to cover arts and culture for the Independent, I took my old touring bicycle on a rambling journey along the East Coast, wayfaring from Key West, Fla. to Lubec, Maine, with detours and diversions in between. (All recorded in notebooks that have yet to see the light of day. Perhaps I'll blog it someday: "Bike on the Half Shell" anyone?) The trip was hazardous in spots, often lacking good shoulder, courteous drivers or a way to ride safely from point A (Florida City) to point B (Miami). Little did I know when I settled down to my sloppy desk in Wakefield, R.I. later in the year that someone was already working on a solution - creating a 3,000-mile ribbon of bike-friendly trail from Florida to Maine called the East Coast Greenway. (Now 20 percent completed and counting.) To top it off, headquarters for the national grass-roots organization was right here in Wakefield.

But the East Coast Greenway is only one of the ways Rhode Island is going green. And with local efforts toward opening up more woods, wilderness and trails to recreational enthusiasts firmly established in the state, someone decided Rhody should go blue, too. It's a great escape: Kayaking the Wood River in Hope Valley, listening to the plaintive cry of a red-shouldered hawk overhead, or cycling the William C. O'Neill (South County) Bike Path through the Great Swamp, watching a snapping turtle the size of a flying saucer emerge from the murk into the sunshine. The call of the wild. The journey of the paddle and the wheel. And the best part of Rhody's blueways and greenways? No highways.