Rhode Island

The alarm went off at 6:30 and I got out of bed to take a peak outside and saw that the sky was clear accept for a few clouds on the horizon line and that the sun was starting to make it’s appearance. I put on some wool socks, a sweatshirt, and grabbed my Ethiopian Airlines blanket and sat out on our balcony to watch the sun rise. The temperature actually wasn’t too bad and there was hardly any wind so I was quite comfortable. In some ways I wish I was a coffee drinker because I think this would have been a perfect place to enjoy a cup of coffee. Tom joined me a short time later and as the sun rose above the clouds he played “Hear Comes The Sun” by the Beatles. Yup! That song was stuck in our heads for the rest of the day.

Once the sun was fully risen we got ready and packed our stuff. Before we checked out we took a walk down the beach. It is obviously not peak season because there weren’t too many people around (just the way I like it). We enjoyed looking at the few homes that were on the beach and dreamt about the day we can buy a property on a beach (maybe in Portugal) and live in part of the house and rent out the other AirBnB style. I had pulled up my geocaching app and noticed there was one close by but it was a 3.5 star difficulty. I thought I would give it a try anyway. I searched for at least 20 minutes but I couldn’t come up with find and I knew we had to get going with our day. It was about 62 degrees when we were walking and the sun felt so great on my face. The beach, ocean, and sun bring me so much joy.

Our next stop was to the Watch Hill Lighthouse, but after missing where to go to get the lighthouse we stopped in the deserted town and I saw a geocache was nearby. I quickly made the find, relieved to mark Rhode Island off the list. I got on my phone and found that to get to the lighthouse we needed to park on the street and walk down a private road. Since it is off-season parking was not an issue and we started the walk past multi-million dollar homes. When we got close to the lighthouse I saw there was parking and we probably could have driven and parked there. There was a sign on the gate at the lighthouse that said private property, but there was a fireman at the flagpole lowering the flag that called out to us. He said he would make us a deal. If we would help remove the flag so it didn’t touch the ground he would let us walk around the lighthouse. I ran over and helped gather up the flag as he lowered it. When he got it free from the clips he thanked us because he doesn’t like it touching the ground. We said no problem and we completely understand as we are in the Air Force. We introduced ourselves and then stood and talked to him (Bob) for 20 minutes or so. We found that he was the caretaker of the lighthouse and lived on the property. He retired from the local fire department previous to this job. The big white house on the hill belongs to Taylor Swift, but she is hardly ever there. He did confirm that since this was off season we could have driven and parked down by the lighthouse because those rules are mostly in place during peak season when thousands of people are in town. It was a real nice conversation and meeting and talking to him made the trip to the lighthouse a highlight.

On our way to our next stop, another lighthouse called Point Judith, I saw a turn-off for a scenic overlook so I stopped to check out the view. The view was ok, but since I stopped I pulled out the geocaching app and saw I had practically parked on top of a cache. I got out and made the find of the reflector magnet cache on the guard rail. At Point Judith we parked and got out, but saw that the lighthouse was locked under a gate as an active place under the Department of Homeland Security so we could only view it from afar. We didn’t think the view was so great so of course I pulled out the app and saw there was a cache nearby that we could drive too. Now this was the spot to get the better view of the lighthouse. Thanks geocaching! I was able to quickly make the find. Tom had originally stayed in the car at this spot, but once I saw what a nice cache this was I wanted to drop the last travel bug my mom had given me, so I went back to the car to get it and told Tom he should come out and check out the view. We snapped some pictures and we were back on our way.

One of the recommendations Tom’s co-worker gave him was the oldest restaurant in America in Newport, RI. We thought we would go there for lunch so we plugged it in the GPS but discovered they didn’t open until 4:00. Our next choice was to check-out a local brewery that she had recommend called Whalers Brewery (https://whalers.com/). They opened at 1:00. Since it was 1:00 when we were leaving Point Judith and it only took 15 minutes to get there we thought this was a perfect choice. GPS took us to a parking area, but we had to roam the surrounding area for several minutes before we found where to actually enter the taproom. When we walked in there was nobody else in the place and it was even a few minutes before a worker appeared at the bar. We asked him what beers he recommended and we made our choice. He said their policy was the first customers of the day got a free beer. We were clearly the first customers, so free beer for us!! They had a nice area to play bags so Tom and I decided to play a game. I came from behind and won the game with a score of 21-9. Obviously a second game had to be played, and Tom won that game 21-19. Of course now we had to play one more time to see who the overall winner was. It was a hard fought battle that went back and forth a few times, but in the end Tom pulled out the win 21-20. We had a ton of fun playing and really enjoyed this stop in Rhode Island. We would have loved to have a second beer, but the clock was ticking and there was more we wanted to do. Off to Newport, RI for the Cliff Walk.

The Cliff Walk (https://www.discovernewport.org/things-to-do/cliff-walk/) is similar to the walk around Lake Geneva where you walk next to the lake and walk in front of all the fancy homes. The only difference here is that instead of the lake you have the ocean and that a large section of the trail is paved. We only walked the paved section because we were running out of time. There were three geocaches along the portion of the trail that we walked, but wouldn’t you know I wasn’t able to find one of them? It was super frustrating, but I was proud of my non-geocaching husband who gave a valiant effort to try to locate them. We were not overly impressed with the cliff walk, but it did remind me that I would like to do the entire 26 mile walk around Lake Geneva sometime. Whose with me? Leah? Kristin?

It was almost 6:00 when we made our way over to the White Horse Tavern (https://whitehorsenewport.com/) and we scored a parking spot kiddy corner from the restaurant. We had assumed there might be a long wait so we had already discussed how long we would be willing to wait. We were pleasantly surprised when the hostess told us that they were all booked for the evening, but they would be able to seat us right away at a table in the bar. Perfect!! Tom was overjoyed!! We sat down and found this was not your typical tavern food, however more of a fancy fine dining experience. Ok – we’re all in! We went for the appetizer of tempura fried squash blossoms stuffed with lobster meat; Tom a beef wellington, myself the beef short ribs with the add-on of scallops, and apple pie flavored bread pudding with vanilla gelato for dessert. The appetizer was good, but not worth the price we paid. Tom said the beef wellington wasn’t seasoned very well, but I thought my meal was excellent and dessert was very good as well. Overall an interesting dining experience and now we can say we’ve eaten at the oldest restaurant in America.

We were on the road to Boston at 7:15 and after driving by our hotel in downtown Boston, we thought it would be better to return the rental car first rather then try to find a place to park to unload to check-in and then to return the car. We got stuck in some traffic waiting for a bridge, and we eventually found a gas station to top-off, but by the time we returned the car we both wanted to get the heck out of it. Driving in Boston is somewhat stressful and with the combination of being tired, we both had gotten cranky with being in the car. Tom didn’t want to take the subway back to the hotel so he ordered a Lyft. We waited awhile for our first Lyft driver, but then he cancelled on us. Not sure if he didn’t know where to go at the airport to get us, but we ordered another and she was there within 5 minutes. We are staying at Citizen M at North Station (https://www.citizenm.com/hotels/united-states/boston/boston-north-station-hotel). This hotel is a tech savvy hotel where we checked ourselves in at the kiosk and even made our own room keys. All the rooms are identical. They are on the smaller side, but I think it will work for us. I’m hoping I get a great night’s sleep because it’s a late one tonight!

Stats of the Day:

Geocaches Attempted: 7
Geocaches Found: 3
3 Lobster Stuffed Squash Blossoms: $22 (didn’t know the price when we ordered them . . .we just went for it)
Gas: $3.79/gallon
Tolls We Might Get Charged For: 1 (still cheaper than paying for the IPASS with the rental)
Miles Driven: 1,477
Steps Walked: 22,078