New York and Rhode Island

New York

 

After leaving Baltimore, we headed for a friend's house in Long Island.  It was the first time we drove to their house.  He teased us about how horrible the drive would be when he gave us advice on how to get to their place.  We feared fast moving traffic with cars weaving instead we found very bumpy roads and slow moving traffic - just above idling.  The traffic was so slow google maps had to add well over an hour to our time! Happily we got there sane and in one piece and started a nice visit with friends.   

We are incrementally seeing the New York city area.  This time our friends took us out on Long Island to some wineries and then we went into the city some too.  We visited Duck Walk Vineyards and Sparkling Pointe.  It was a pretty day so we were happy to sit outside, taste some wine and eat some cheese and crackers.  At Duck Walk, you had several wines to choose from to make up your 4 sample taste.  Three of us tasted the wines - they were nice and in fact our friends bought a bottle.  We sat outside listening to a very good guitar player.  As the name suggests, our second winery had sparkling wines.  Their tastings were a little more regimented with preset choices for you.  Jeff and I made a point of choosing different flights.  Being the sucker that I am for sparkling, we took a bottle home.  Then it was time to go back home.  The area is very remote, but also kind of geared to visits from the suburban and city folks with lots of farm stores, you pick em places, little bakeries - all sorts of great food and drink. 

The Vessel from inside

The next day it was city time.  It also was a very hot day.  We took the train into the city with the plan of visiting the Vessel and Hi Line park with lunch mixed in.  First stop was the Vessel.  When it first opened, I had read about it and thought it would be fun to visit, unfortunately I had forgotten about it.  Fortunately our friend had not.  We got tickets for it and then started climbing and looking out from all the various vantage spots.  Like I said it was a hot day, so we quickly became enamored with the Hudson River side because it had a breeze!  When we had our fill of the Vessel we headed off to lunch only to get wooed into a totally different restaurant - The Tailor's Pub.  We had a mixture of healthy and pub food all of which was pretty good.  While there, I realized how close we were to Mood Fabric store and made a pitch for stopping there.  Since it was so hot out, the guys were agreeable.  I found some buttons I needed to finish a project and some fabric to make a couple of other things (getting back to my sewing machine may be required for the new projects though).

Rhode Island

The next day we were off for Providence, Rhode Island which was our next planned home base.  We stayed at an Omni hotel at the convention center which is being renovated.  Our room had already received a refresh and looked good - best looking/cleanest carpet ever!  After relaxing and unpacking, we headed out for a walk around the area.  Were on the edge of an arts district and not far from both Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design.  As we started walking we found an art deco street clock and several nice murals.  Like most art areas, you could tell the district had suffered during covid, but happily there were signs of life returning too.

School of Economics at Brown

When we stopped at the front desk to ask about walking to Brown, they had said it was atop a big hill and you should drive there.  To us, that was challenge on - we walked to it and around the area which had some very nice houses.  Being urban and older, the houses tended to have well tended gardens with big old trees, some nice rhododendrons and lots of flowers from spring to early summer blooming plants.

Newport

We went to Newport for the day.  We had heard about the "cottages" from the super rich of the early 20th century and the cliff walk plus knew it as a good sailing spot.  We parked in town and started walking -we walked alot that day.  Of course, it was unseasonably hot.  I kept wondering about the rich ladies in their long dresses in the day and how they survived, but then when we got to the cliffs and where their houses were it was much cooler.  The most famous house is the the "breakers" which was owned by a Vanderbilt and so named because the water breaks (waves) right outside their land. It is an impressive place with ornamentation everywhere.  Hard to imagine this being the norm for a child, but it was.

Breakers from Cliff Walk

Entry Hall of Breakers

a bedroom

part of the kitchen

After the Breakers we visited the Marble House which was owned by a different Vanderbilt.  This one had a strong willed wife who divorced him shortly after building the house and went on to be a leader in the suffragist movement.  She even had china made which is displayed in a cabinet.

Marble House

The marble house is so named because it is heavily made of marble.  It also has a couple of unique rooms like the one above known as the gothic room.  It includes some very unique and special artwork from that time and scholars used to make reservations to come and study the works.

The lady of the house had tried to make the interior of Marble House very European so she decided she needed something Asian also thus she had this pavilion built in her backyard close to the cliffs.  True to the gilded age lifestyle, she opened it with a huge ball. 

kitchen of the Marble House

As we walked back to town after viewing those 2 house, we saw many other quite nice homes.  There are signs along the sidewalk describing how many of them fell from favor and were almost razed.  Several of them now make up much of the campus of the Catholic University Salve Regina.

another view from the cliff walk

New Bedford

On our way to Cape Cod, we stopped in New Bedford, Massachusetts.  Jeff had read about a whaling museum there and wanted to stop.  It is a well known museum since others later suggested we visit it. It is part of the National Park Service.   At one time, New Bedford was a major whaling seaport.  They say the top place, but I noticed some other towns around Cape Cod claiming the same thing!

view of New Bedford marina

whale skeleton in the entry of the whaling museum

example of a whale heart

After that we were back on the road on our way to Cape Cod.

Williamsburg, VA

Williamsburg, VA area

My main memory of this trip will be the weather - who would have thought it would only be in the 60s in VA over Memorial Day Weekend!  It was in the mid to upper 80s when we first got there but a storm Friday evening and another mid day Saturday brought a fair amount of rain and a cold wind!  Sunday's high was only in the 60s.  On Saturday the three of us (Cierra joined us for the week end) went to the farmer's market and got strawberries and then went to the old town colonial area.  

The visit to Old Towne Williamsburg did not start great.  2 very slow employees to change our vouchers to tickets and the change in weather - we went from being hot to being cold in a half hour.  We did enjoy the town though.  There were several shops to stop and visit with knowledgeable staff representing shop owners of the time.  

We walked through a small vegetable garden and learned about how hard it was to get water in a drought and where on the plant a peanut grows.  Later we would hide out from the cold and rain and learn about cooking during the 1700s and how they only cooked one meal a day since they needed light to do some aspects of cooking such as deboning a meat or waiting for your oven to get hot and then to stabilize at the correct temperature to make bread.  The attendants were great at comparing what was happening in the 18th century to food trends that are happening now.

We also noticed a sign at the farmers market area for Old Towne Williamsburg about how it was illegal to sell your products before the official start of the market or to buy more than your household needed.  We were suspicious at least some of those rules were related to taxes especially after we learned that there had been taxes imposed on goods transported between individual colonies.  England had done a lot of things to keep the colonists as supporting players to mother England such as restricting the type of sheep allowed to be raised in the colonies so the colonist couldn’t compete with English textiles.  The above picture was taken in the blacksmith shop.  

We also visited the city and county courthouse (colonial capitol - council side was the courtroom).  It was interesting to hear details of court options and proceedings because it did dispel some beliefs I had of the time.  There was a story of a woman who had a farm and hired a man to deliver the goods to market only to ruin them on the way.  They did not agree on what percentage of the crop was damaged and the lady was able to take the man to court and win her case.  I had thought a woman could not do such a thing, but since she was widowed she could.

As we were leaving, we passed a field full of sheep baaing a lot.  In fact, some were going hoarse another person watching them said they had just been weaned from their mothers and were upset.

In addition to the Old Town area, we wandered around the campus of William and Mary.  Cierra is now a proud owner of a pair of William and Mary sweatpants since she had not brought any pants for the trip and her legs were cold!

  

The First day we were all there was Friday and it was warm - what we had expected for the whole week end.  Cierra had been advised to visit a winery or two while there so we went to  The Williamsburg Winery where we did a tasting on a nice covered porch.  We each had a different flight and shared ones we liked or thought someone else would.  It was a nice beginning to our trip. 

     

Our travels also took us to Yorktown which is only 18 miles away.  There we toured the battlefield.  Thanks to Covid an excellent app was developed that tells you what happened at various sites along the driving route.

We also visited Jamestown.  There is a parkway that connects the 3 towns.  I am sure back then it was considered a long ride to go from one to the other, but now a days they are each a short drive from each other.  I was surprised to learn that Pocahontas had been part of Jamestown; not sure where I thought she fit into US history!  There is the remnants of the fort that was built and the church is still standing.

One thing that surprised us as we drove around the sites was that often in the woods there was greenery.  It was not just dead leaves on the ground like we think of forests in say Missouri or Illinois.

Since the whole family was together, we planned a nice meal which turned out to be a 3 course brunch at a French restaurant called Le Yaca on Sunday.  If you ever visit Williamsburg, I would highly recommend it.

Washington DC

Jeff and I then slipped into DC for a couple of days to visit museums and the zoo.  We got to the zoo, but did not get to see the pandas.  That was disappointing, but the zoo was not up to its standards in general with many exhibits closed and animals offsite.  We did make it to one of the portrait galleries which was quite nice.  Above is an Andean bear

On our last morning we walked from our hotel in Chinatown to the National Mall only to find it rather empty.  It was us, a high school group, some protestors and just a handful of other tourists at 10 in the morning.

Baltimore, MD

Then it was onto Baltimore for a couple of days where we visited Fort McHenry.   The defiant commander of Fort McHenry commissioned a very large U.S. flag, known as "The Star-Spangled Banner" to insure the British could see it.  Francis Scott Key was inspired by the large flag flying triumphantly above the fort during the bombardment and wrote a poem that was later set to a British tune.  It was recognized by Congress in 1931 as our National Anthem.  

The Brood X of 17 year Cicadas were in good voice and everywhere during our visit.  They would land on you and if you didn't notice, you might take them inside.  Most creatures and a few people feast on the Cicadas.  I believe the snake below may have dined on them given how he wasn't moving much when we encountered him.  

Northern Georgia/Highlands, NC

We have started our summer 2021 grand tour.  It is not the original trip - attempt 2 to do the United Kingdom.   However we shall have some fun and still hoping to make Scotland in August. We are starting our trip with visits with friends and relatives.  The Atlanta Jays now own a mountain cabin right on the GA/NC state line and invited us to visit it.  I think it will be named Dillard Falls and will be available through VRBO.  I would recommend it.

Dillard Falls 2B/2B creek side rental

While we were there we got some hiking done (as much as my still recovering sprained ankle allowed), some good food and a little wandering both by car and by foot.  Like many a mountain hike many of them in this area include waterfalls.  Our first hike, Mud Trail starts quite near the cabin and in fact you turnaround just down the road from the cabin.  It has 2 waterfalls.  The trail ends at a structure that  spans the waterfall.  It is a neat old building, though a wash out makes it challenging to cross.

Our second real hike was the Glenn Falls hike near Highlands, NC which has 3 turnout spots to see the falls from different angles.  For this one, we went in full hike mode or our version of it.  We had our hiking pants for both hikes after Jeff thought he saw poison ivy and for this hike we added water and trekking poles.  It was our first time with the trekking poles.  We were glad to have them at times!  It was quite pretty and would recommend it to others.

Jeff's brother had warned us that it would be easy to gain weight up there since there are a lot of good restaurants around.  Unfortunately, we did run into staffing issues which meant we did face some restrictions on our choices.  We had wood fired pizza at Four65 Wood Fired Pizza followed by drinks at Hummingbird Lounge of the Old Edwards Inn.  The pizza was good as were the drinks and all in nice atmosphere.  Jeff's niece had told us to to walk around the Old Edwards Inn which we started to do while waiting for a table at the pizza place.  When we walked in the door, the front desk manager offered to show us around which is how we ended up in the Hummingbird lounge for drinks.  Another night we ate outside in the wine garden at Old Edwards Inns which was a nice setting with a little artificial waterfall artfully placed.  That night we had ice ream for dessert from an ice creamery - Kilwins which was quite good.  On our last day we were able to eat at one of the restaurants the Jays had recommended.  The Ruffled Grouse where we sat at the bar and shared the daily special of scallops followed by 2 desserts.  We enjoyed the atmosphere and the food was good too!  Earlier in the day we  wandered by car to Cashiers, NC and visited Whiteside Brewing Company.   We sat outside on their porch and enjoyed a couple of stout beers and sweet potato french fries before wandering to the local farmers market.

Speaking of wandering, if you are a big shopper then you need to plan time to wander the downtown streets of Highlands.  I am not much of a shopper these days, but even I saw something I wanted and got!  Both agreed we would be happy to wander back here again.  another place to wander is the Highlands Botanical Gardens - a pleasant surprise.

Cinnamon Fern