Christopher Martin's Top Five Rhode island Oddball Attractions

Christopher Martin grew up in Woodstock, New York, and has lived in Rhode Island for twenty years. A resident of Johnston, he is Editor-in-Chief of quahog.org, an exhaustively researched site that details the culture, history and attractions of the Ocean State. Quahog.org was voted “Best Local Website” in Rhode Island Monthly’s 2008 readers’ poll, and leaves no hot weiner unturned in its mission to be “the definitive Rhode Island road trip.”

1. Musée Patamécanique, undisclosed location, Bristol. Art, mechanics and museology come together in a series of ten bizarre exhibits curated by artist Neil Salley. Tours by appointment only.

2. Florence Nightingale’s nurse cap,Westerly Hospital lobby,Westerly. The Angel of the Crimea, whose pioneering work in nursing, sanitation, and statistics let to dramatically improved hospital conditions and saved thousands of lives, never visited the United States. So why is one of her hats on display in Westerly? Stop by and find out. Open 24 hours.

3. The Prinster Hogg Memorial, Crazy Corners, Scituate. A large boulder commemorates the pilots (pilot Thomas N. Prinster and copilot Lyle W. Hogg) who made an emergency landing of their burning passenger plane on the frozen Scituate Reservoir in February 1982. The commuter flight had been en-route from Groton, Connecticut to Boston when a fire broke out in the cockpit and spread to the cabin. There were a number of serious injuries, including major burns to the pilots, and one passenger died. The Memorial is open dawn to dusk.

4. German submarine U-853, under 130 feet of water, east of Block Island. Only experienced divers should attempt to visit this attraction, a WWII German patrol sub that was sunk by American naval forces on May 7, 1945, just hours before Germany signed surrender papers and ended the war. In addition to the 55 crew members entombed in the wreck, at least four divers have lost their lives while visiting the sub since 1953.

5. Grave of John Rogers Vinton, Swan Point Cemetery, Providence. Vinton’s grave is topped by the very cannonball that killed him during the Battle of Vera Cruz, Mexico, on March 22, 1847. Viewable during regular cemetery hours.