Lost in Cyberspace

Anticipating tonight's season finale of "Lost" inspired a little Google play: When you Google "Lost Rhode Island," the first listing chronicles the demise of four Ocean State ski areas. That means Little Rhody, a state with no mountains, once had five places to go downhill skiing. The only one left is Yawgoo Valley, but at one time Rhode Island also counted Diamond Hill, Neutaconkanut Hill, Pine Top and Ski Valley as slope-worthy, a ski belt that stretched from Cumberland through Providence/Johnston and into Escoheag and Exeter. (In typical "Only in Rhode Island" fashion, Ski Valley and Diamond Hill shared one side of the same Cumberland hill, even though they were two separate ski operations.)

What does this have to do with "Lost?" Nothing. In fact, I'm hard-pressed as a weekly "Lost" watcher to think of any time the TV show made reference to Rhode Island culture (except remotely as part of the Jack-is-a-Red-Sox-fan-who-still-can't-believe-they-won-the-World-Series running gag). In that way, "Lost" has nothing on the cool years of "The X-Files" (early-to-mid Mulder), when one episode was set in Chepachet, another featured flashbacks to Mulder's childhood summer cottage in Quonochontaug and a later show mentioned that his mom was in a Providence hospital.

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.

Peak bagging

Dr. Tim Warren became the first Rhode Islander to climb Mount Everest last Friday at 11:15 p.m. Eastern Time. The Warwick chiropractor scaled the world's highest mountain (29,035 feet) on his second attempt, helping to raise money as part of his "Klimb for Kids" campaign for the children of A Wish Come True, the wish-granting organization founded in Tiverton in 1982. In a brief blog chronicling his excursion, he notes:

"I have been where humans are just not supposed to be and the corpses are in plain sight as a reminder."

A few years ago, those same words might've applied to the highest climb in Rhode Island, the 882-foot summit at Jerimoth Hill in Foster. The hiking isn't hard, but the shotgun-wielding landowner made life difficult for anyone who attempted the feat. Thanks to the work of Highpointers (people dedicated to climbing all 51 of America's tallest-per-state peaks - D.C. included) and new property owners, walkers are allowed to hike Jerimoth Hill from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. 52 weeks a year. Surprisingly, Rhode Island's little molehill of a mountain isn't the smallest in the U.S. Little Rhody looms above the highpoints of Mississippi (806 feet), Louisiana (535), Delaware (442), Washington D.C. (415) (although climbing the steps of the Washington Monument will get you up to 555 feet) and Florida (345).

Sticks and stones

Dissing Rhode Island has long been an American pastime, dating back to Colonial days, when Massachusetts Puritans derisively referred to the colony of eccentrics, mystics, misfits and religious exiles as Rogue's Island. Then, as now, our neighbors in the Bay and Nutmeg states did most of the slagging. Massachusetts Bay Colony Calvinist Cotton Mather was the Shakespeare of the Rhody put-down, producing at least two classic insults, calling Rhode Island "the fag end of the universe" and "the cesspool of New England." As recently as 2000, in the pages of Smithsonian magazine, a Connecticut writer called for the abolition of Rhode Island as a state. Of course, the jealousies of our border states may be prompted by missing out on better beaches, better kitsch and a better sense of humor.

Squiggy, the Ugly Dog

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but ugly is universal. Squiggy, a canine from Exeter, is vying for the title of "World's Ugliest Dog." A mix of hairless Chinese crested and Japanese chin, Squiggy has a spiky mohawk and a face only a mother could love. He's missing most of his teeth, causing his tongue to hang out lopsided. The unofficial mascot of the Pet Refuge Animal Shelter in North Kingstown, Squiggy was adopted through a rescue in 2006 at six weeks of age. This Monday, he'll march with the "Dogs of Wickford" in the North Kingstown Memorial Day Parade. For now, he ranks third in the online contest sponsored by the Sonoma-Marin Fair of California. But in true Rhode Island "Underdog" fashion, he's not giving up. Squiggy's pressing the flesh regularly in Wickford, where the strolling masses stop to greet him. He also appears at pet expos, charity dog walks and in animal shelters across the state. He's even got his own line of merchandise.

Would you vote for this dog?

Blog love

Blog on the Half Shell may be anchored in Rhode Island, but the world is our quahog. So we were thrilled to appear last week in The Boston Globe's travel blog, Globe-trotting, thanks to the good word put in by my friend Chris Murphy, who works on the travel desk at the Globe and Boston.com. My reader will now have company. Clams got legs!

In that same giving spirit, Blog on the Half Shell isn't the only scenic detour in the Rhody blogosphere. Those interested in following the Ocean State's political scene should check out Not for Nothing, a news blog by the estimable Ian Donnis of the Providence Phoenix. Art and preservation collide at Art in Ruins, an artist-as-activist Web site chronicling the demise of some of the state's most beloved landmarks and buildings. And for an extended road trip through the wild, the weird and the wicked Rhode Island, visit the folks at Quahog.

Rat 'sori'

The following "size of Rhode Island" reference comes from the online edition of the San Bernardino County Sun of California, courtesy of my friend and Rhody renaissance man, Tom Viall:

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing cutting the habitat set aside for the endangered San Bernardino kangaroo rat by two-thirds.

"Under the proposal, the designated critical habitat for the kangaroo rat would be reduced to approximately 10,500 acres from more than 33,000 acres in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, according to a report by the federal agency.

"The species historically occupied 326,467 acres, an area about one third the size of Rhode Island."