Rhode Island & Cape Cod

71 years ago, Kathy's parent's, Ed & Eileen had to make a night-time run from Groton, Connecticut to the North Kingston Naval Hospital in Rhode Island. Ed told us that he was praying that a cop would stop him for speeding, so they'd have an escort to the hospital. He was helped by Eileen's mother, who sat in the back seat, and never stopped praying the rosary.

Kathy and I couldn't help but imagine how frightening that must have been, as we followed the same route in stop-and-go traffic. The Naval hospital is long gone, with the base closed in 1974. Since there was nothing left for us to see we turned of onto Highway 138, climbed up and across the Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge, made a quick touchdown on Jamestown Island, and then were up and away again, climbing the heights of the Clairborne Pell Newport Bridge. Kathy remarked that our friend Hourik, who hates high bridges, would have had a heart attack. 

We made it to the Newport Visitor's Center just in time to use the restroom, and hop aboard our 10am Trolley Tour of Historic Newport and the Breakers mansion.

We sat in the second row on reproduction trolley seats, that were a little like being in economy class on an airplane. I'm sure by the end of the day, Kathy was tired of me taking up half of her space.

Newport is quite a large town, and not all of it is wealthy, but the focus of the tour was the excesses of the Gilded Age (1870 to about 1910). In fact, if you follow the Wikipedia link the article is illustrated by a picture of the Breakers, the Vanderbilt's summer "cottage". Kathy was impressed by the Country Club were you have to be invited to join, and the dues are $100,000 a year. You'd really have to like golf to think that was a good deal.

For those of you who are fans of Downton Abbey, Newport is the social milieu that Cora came from when she married Robert Crowley (Lord Grantham). As we walked through each of the opulent rooms, I couldn't help but think of Cora's mother, Martha Levinson, haunting every room. Levinson, played by Shirley MacClaine, felt that Downton Abbey was somewhat primitive and simple, compared to the life she was used to in New York and Newport. This is the living room of the Vanderbilt's Breakers.

I was fascinated by the painted ceilings, like this one which is painted to look like the sky. The frame is painted to look like marble. 

While I was leaning back, craning my neck to get the picture, I almost fell over one of the velvet ropes. Kathy saw it and showed me a neat trick. To take a picture of the ceiling, put your phone in selfie mode and just hold it down by your waist. This is the continuation of the great-hall ceiling, out on the arcade, with painted umbrellas shielding the guests.

This is the arcade itself, looking out to the open sea, over the cliffs where the breaking waves gave the Breakers its name.

Here's the billiards room. It's a lot fancier than Mark Twain's, but I'm not sure that is a benefit. No one wrote Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn in the corner of this room. As at Twain's house, the massive lamps over the table were designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Above the lamps and the billiards table is yet another ornate painted ceiling.

We weren't allowed to go up and down the main staircase, but we could peer down at it from the third floor. I thought that this portrait, of one of the Vanderbilt women, looked just like Cora (Lady Grantham).

We had only an hour for our tour (which wasn't guided). There was a good audio tour that you could download, but since I didn't have any earbuds, I couldn't listen to it. (I tried, but one of the docents told me to turn my phone down). In the end, we got one of the printed brochures and followed it from room to room. The is the kitchen. The china cabinet took up two floors.

When we left the Vanderbilt's "cottage", we had a few minutes to walk through the gardens before meeting our trolley.

We got back to the Visitor's Center about 2pm. We asked our driver where he would eat and he directed us to the Brick Alley Pub. The food was great and it was reasonably priced. That was the highlight of our trip to Newport.

After our late lunch, we set sail (well, not really; we drove) for Dennis, Massachusetts, in the mid-cape region of Cape Cod. Dennis is next door to Hyannis Port of Kennedy family fame. We stayed two nights at the Mulberry Tree Inn. 

Saturday morning, after a great three-course breakfast prepared by Mary Beth, our host, we headed over to the Dennis Cycle Center where we rented two electric bikes, planning to spend the day on the Cape Cod Rail Trail. 

The 25 mile trail is built on the rail bed of the Penn Central railroad which went bankrupt in 1970. The trail is part of the 135-mile Claire Saltonstall Bikeway which goes from the center of Boston to the tip of Cape Cod.

We rode from Dennis (where the bike shop is right on the trail) up past Orleans, where we turned off on the Nauset Bike Trail to Coast Guard Beach. 

Every path to the beach has this sign before you start down. I think a similar sign would thin out the crowds in the lineup at Huntington.

Halfway down the path to the beach is a "stop the bleed kit".  I'm glad I didn't bring my body board.

The trail ended at Coast Guard Beach but we rode our bikes about a half mile up the road to visit Nauset Lighthouse, which, in 1996 was moved 330 feet inland (to its present location), when the cliffs kept falling into the sea.

Despite the same ominous sign we saw at Coast Guard Beach, there were four surfers in the water trying to make the best of the two-foot swells.

We had to have the bikes back by 5pm, so instead of going to the end of the trail we turned around and started back. We stopped for fish and chips along the way, and got back just in the nick of time. Kathy is really sold on electric bikes now. She told me that she's willing to do another Bike 'n Barge trip if we have electric bikes.

Tomorrow, we're heading for Boston.