36 - 2/25/11

Initial Impressions

Christopher Setterlund

36 – 2/25/11

In My Footsteps Trip

            This trip was to Smithfield & Woonsocket, RI as well as Attleboro, Mass.  250 total miles of driving, $30 on gas mostly thanks to the average price of gas being $3.30/gal.  Stupid oil, everybody yaps about electric cars and hybrids but the companies make them twice as expensive to buy, where’s the logic?

            I got tailed by a pine green Mini for a good ten miles on I-295, I was even going 80-85 and wondered how fast the crazy old man driving it wanted to go.

            Kind of funny story, I got into Smithfield and began checking for an historic home to photograph.  I drove past a house four times, circling over and over trying to find a spot to park.  I ended up parking on the next road down from the house and walking back.  It was then that I realized that it was not even the right house, so I took a couple of photos and shook my head in amazement.

            I visited the Smithfield Exchange Bank which was being renovated.  It is supposed to be haunted but I did not see or hear anything.  Still, I did take my time and check to be sure.  In the same area where I parked was a State Representative’s office which was coincidentally located next to a crematorium. 

            The Smith-Appleby House was my favorite spot in Smithfield.   It was a weird mix as it was vacant and quiet yet it was right near the hum of the interstate.  The homes were gold and red and there was a sweet view of a rolling hill over a creek and the Appleby family cemetery.  The only downside was the pile of rotting pumpkins on the front step, oh well, close enough to great.

            There was another historic home I stopped at but it is now an apartment complex.  I parked at the next door church and walked over passing an old woman getting in her car to leave.  She stared at me like I was a serial killer as I shot a few photos.  She drove off reeeeeeallly slow.  Then as I was leaving she was coming back, probably to make sure I didn’t burn the place down, so I smiled and waved like an ass, ha!

            The very next spot had a similar experience, I was shooting the Smithfield Town Hall when a guy came out and said they had good photos on their website, I explained why I was there and he said it was cool as long as I was not planning on filing a lawsuit against them.  Odd question, unless something like that has happened to them before.

            I really liked the Market Square Pavilion in Woonsocket right next to the Woonsocket Falls.  It is a cool brick building, I’ll add a photo.  They were working on the falls also, there was a crew in a small boat drifting around near the edge of the falls, lucky for them they didn’t go over, although it would have made for a great shot.  Yes, I did wait to make sure.

            I was lucky enough to park across from Woonsocket’s City Hall, lucky because there was an amazing mural on the back wall of the parking area.  It gave a cool vibe to the whole area.  There was also this odd Santa’s Workshop next to City Hall, it was enclosed in Plexi-glass which made me wonder how comfortable the Santa inside would have been.  Did they force some guy in there and leave him to smile and wave for 8 hours at a time?  How did that work?

            One of the coolest places I saw ended up being a Ukranian Orthodox Church, it looked like something out of India.  Oh and Woonsocket has more churches per mile than any city I have seen, must have been 2 dozen I saw in my time there and I only saw a fraction of the city.

            I had an old woman yell at me because she thought I took her photo when I was shooting the Stadium Theatre in Woonsocket.  I said I didn’t shoot her and she said she would have had to break my camera if I did.  Classy.  I guess if I looked like her I wouldn’t want my photo taken either.

            The Angle Tree Stone in Attleboro was probably the best thing I saw.  It is the old town marker dividing Attleboro and Plainville.  It looks like a 6 foot gravestone with writing on it from 1790.  Since asses kept trying to ruin it the stone is now behind plexi-glass and in a brick building.  It was still cool though set back like ¼ mi. from the road.

            My trip was good until I got to the Capron Park Zoo 10 minutes after it closed.  Yeah, so I had planned on tons of photos and a video inside, all ruined!  I rapidly lost interest in the remaining few spots after that.

            While shooting the Falls Fire Barn Museum in North Attleboro I had a nice The Birds moment with a group of crows making this horrible noise in the trees.  It’s like if you rewind a tape with the sound playing, really creepy.

            The trip was average but I was glad to have a sort of co-pilot with me, at least via texting.  Thank you, you always make things better by showing up.

Photos of the Day:

Smith-Appleby House with a great view.

Market Square Pavilion

The Angle Tree Stone behind the plexi-glass.

An amazing mural in Woonsocket.