The Park At The Edge Of The World

The park guardian looks angry...

Goddard Park is disintegrating! Every rain erodes it away further as chunks of it fall into the ocean. By the end of the century, it will quite possibly have disappeared completely. Hurry and visit while you can! How fitting that even my memory of my visit is fading since I took so long to write down my account.

I visited Goddard Memorial State Park in Rhode Island sometime in August 2018. It is a large place with winding driveways through expansive grassy fields lined with picnic tables. There are restrooms and a golf course. The interior is wooded, with trails sometimes frequented by horses. The western edge is a sandy beach touching a marine cove. I parked near the beach and set out on foot to explore the northern tip of the peninsula.

There were dozens of fallen trees where the highlands met the beach. Many still had their leaves on. The edge did not look sturdy. Gullies and exposed roots were everywhere. Side trails from the main trail simply ended abruptly at the edge of cliffs and overhangs.

I've fallen and I can't get up!

down for the count

water carving

I finally reached the seashore where there was a short jetty leading to a large boulder in the sea. I rested in the sun surrounded by waves a while before taking a picture of the way I had come.

Around in this area were additional signs of erosion. Rocks broke into flakes held together by organic matter. Strange pits speckled otherwise smooth stone.

I also saw this cool rock and shell:

There were also hordes of small animals here that allowed me to videotape them. I love animals! I have recently been having problems with my videos such that after taking them they will inexplicably rotate to vertical. I have since bought an app to fix this and I will let you know how it works in the future.

I then headed south along the beach where I saw another animal that I thought was only something I had made up out of my imagination myself when I was a kid – the mysterious sea bread:

Ingredients: flour, salt water, dubious interpretation

I returned to my car for lunch, then took the trails to the south. There were very many branches to the path. Then I discovered this map on a tree! Well, that would have been helpful if it was placed near the entrance!

Dan, I don't think that's a map...

This part of the park is used by horses and there is the occasional pile of horse dung. There wasn’t much else to see. I vaguely remember a piece of metal stuck in a tree, but that’s it. I soon became tired and returned north by way of the beach. This is when I discovered that animals far scarier than horses also frequent the park. What kind of animal poops rocks?

I went home in a hurry.

Shrooms And Blooms

Just as all over Rhode Island that August, there were mushrooms and other fungi. Most were the same as those photographed elsewhere and I was too lazy to bother this time. There were also a few flowers. Here are the photographs I bothered to take: