It's a long road to Madrid: Two stuffies and a bump

There's an old joke about New England. Maine to be exact. An crusty old New Englandah answers a tourist's plea for directions like this:

You can't get theayah (there) from heayah (here).

I'm beginning to believe you can't get from Providence to Madrid.

I've been bumped, now that I've checked in for my twice cancelled flight to Philly. On the other hand I have scored a free roundtrip ticket, discovered WIFI and plugged in my laptop, making me a happy thrice-cancelled wanderer.

I vividly remember walking out the back door of this airport and crossing the tarmac to my plane when I'd head back to college after summer and Christmas breaks. Twenty years later I'm spending the afternoon in Gate 6 (6! of 12 or 15!!), ecstatic to find that my hometown airport has added not only departure gates but WIFI. In true Rhode Island tradition (I once misdialed my father's phone number and reached someone who knew both him and his new number, I swear) I spent my first hour at the gate chatting with my very first employers - the former neighbors whose children I babysat until the day I walked across the tarmac to college.

I prepared for the day''s travel with one last taste of the Ocean State: a cup of chowder, a couple of deliciousstuffies and a well placed dash of Tabasco at O'Rourke's, the new pub in the old town where I grew up. There are clams in my belly and peanut butter in my suitcase. I'm ready to go home.

I stumbled across Quahog.org while searching for a stuffie photo. Everything you could want to know about little Rhode Island and then some.

Meet you back here soon, hopefully with tales of morcilla and patatas meneadas....
¡Hasta pronto, Salamanca!