I used to have this neat trivia fact that I always used to pull on people (especially people not from RI); that fact that out of all of the 50 states, Rhode Island was the only one without a Dairy Queen.
So, I went to the Providence Place Mall and what do they have there now consolidated with the Orange Julius stand.
A Dairy Queen.
Rhode Island has now lost it’s trivia status.
It’s a good thing that we’re still the size of most icebergs and glaciers or we’d have nothing.
Did you forget that your true claim to fame is the smallest state? Like so small that many people in Texas mentally compare it in multiplies of their living room in order to visulaize it. That is a pretty impressive honor.
We were taught that Rhode Island was just slightly larger than our football stadium. Without the parking lot, of course.
(went to HS in Texas, a very football oriented state)
A Texan and a Rhode Islander are comparing farms. The Rhode Islander says that he has a farm that’s 100 acres wide. The Texan says, “Why son, my farm is so big you could hop in your car at dawn and start driving and not make it to the other end by twilight.”
The Rhode Islander says “Yeah, I had a car like that once, too.”
And with the longest official name.
This a 100% true story. My mother is a national keynote speaker and she comes to Rhode Island occasionally. One time she was on a conference call to work out a speech in Rhode Island. One of the planners suggested a location in Providence. The other planner said: “Oh God know, we have to pick a more central location. Some of these people are going to have to drive all the way across the state.”
Exactly. I thought I was going to open this thread and find out it had grown :eek: .
That’s us, all the way. You can drive across our state in just over an hour (depending on what route you take) but if you have some event more than 5 minutes away, we’d just as soon stay home.
Eutychus
And as if that is not enough, Rhode Island has the widest bridge in the world !!!
Yes, the Crawford Street Bridge in Providence is 1,147 feet wide. Take that you Lone Star Staters!!! (I’m from Boston by the way, but I do have New England pride).
Oooh! I’d like to see that bridge.*
I could put it in the kid’s room.
*serious, I would. and a reason for its being so wide.
NoClueBoy
Good point. I’ve never seen the darned thing either.
I was gonna say VT had no Dairy Queen, cause I only knew of one in a mall, and it went away. But according to the store locator there is one is South Burlington. Maybe they just moved locations.
But we are still, to my knowledge, the only state with no McD’s on our state capital.
No kidding!! Way too many years ago I was a student at URI, and was friends with someone who lived in Pawtucket. Her father had to work in Westerly for a few days and got a motel room because there was no way he was going to make that 1 hour commute :rolleyes:
And yes, folks, they are at opposite ends of the state 
While looking for a picture of that Crawford St. bridge monstrosity I found this page of RI-related trivia:
http://www.quahog.org/factsfolklore/index.php?id=14
BTW wolf_meister it looks like the bridge hasn’t had that status since the early nineties (scroll down linked page).
Laughing Lagomorph
Thanks for updating me about the bridge. Anybody have a link to what the bridge looked like at its widest “Guinness Book” stature?
Incidentally, when I first saw the thread title I immediately thought “Wow - has Guam become the 51st state?” Guess not.
I was wondering if Guam had become a state without my realizing it myself.
As long as Newport Creamery’s are in existence, there is nothing trivial about Rhode Island.
While we are talking about Rhode Island, Euty, what is going on with that horrid Night Club Fire Case? I never hear/read anything about it.
Right now, nothing. The Dederian Brothers (the owners of the club) have been indicted on various charges but it’s probably going to be a while before it gets to court. The only thing the courts have been able to get them on so far is for not having Workman’s Compensation insurance for the employees who died in the fire.
It’s a big mess, of course, but nothing exciting right now. Stuff about how the owners didn’t pay worker’s comp. Not to speak for Euty or anything. Just a Rhode Islander checking in. It does give me a chance to see our hot Attorney General on the news though.
I didn’t know about the Dairy Queen thing though. I mean, yes, I certainly knew they had one over at the mall and stuff, but I didn’t know that before that we were the only state without one.