We called it a wash in AZ, too, but I know what arroyo means. My parents got their car "stuck in a wash," when they tried to cross it after a flash flood...

Red Rhodie, your list made me laugh. I think about three fourths of those apply to eastern MA also, with a few that are very specific to RI. I think that most of those expressions you find in blue collar towns in eastern MA, especially where people don't move away and there's generations of families living in close proximity. When I was a kid, everyone used those expressions, but I doubt I'd hear one in Concord, today! Even my students in Hudson don't have any accents or use a lot of regional words (except maybe bubbler), but quite a few of their parents do. Again, this is a community where people stay put and often live down the street from their parents, aunts, uncles.