Aloha MM's,
I am writing this to you
from an extremely lovely RV Park, on the wee peninsula road, looking out to
the sea inlet here at Gloucester, Massachusetts!!
So pretty! And of course—the weather has been lovely all the way through.
Which brings me to the weather report on this trip.
Last night, we parked up in
'Ye olde Sardine RV Park—with no showers or toilets"—whoops...always read the fine print! As you know, we do HAVE a shower, it's just a
matter of rotor rooting out all the crap that is piled in there—so today
started with a liberal sprinkling of eau-de-ponger instead!
Speaking of showers, we have
had very few. (No, not US—I mean...rain.) Why? Because we take our
weather with us and always have a friendly wee chat with the weather gods, as
we call them.
Last night, we went out to
dinner at a nice seafood (of course—in New England)
restaurant on the beach. We had 'to die for' lobster dishes—one in a
cream sherry sauce, the other a brandy mushroom cream sauce. Wowwww. We are
getting close to being lobstered out—so I ate mostly the sauce. But what a
sauce!!! Such richness—incredible!!!
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| Lobster in a creamy sherry sauce - soooooo good. Oooh! |
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| New England creamy oysters |
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| Look at these fat delicious olives, in stunning peppery olive oil, balsamic vinegar and parmesan... Yummm!!! |
To say that we waddled out
of there was an understatement. I surprised they didn't have to bring a
stretcher! Anyway, a visit to the bathroom was in order and as I walked into
the bathroom, they had a song playing. Our very own countrymen—Crowded
House— with their song, Everywhere you go...always take the weather with
you...
I love this song and this is
like a theme song for me. It always reminds me that asking for anything
you want is as simple as—asking. Whether it's weather, or money, a car, a
job, a new house, a friendship, a relationship, a car park. Nothing is too
big or too small to ask the Universe for. Ask, and you shall receive. The
weather gods on this trip have been exceedingly accommodating! As has the
Universe at keeping us out of dodgy places—other than a few RV parks, which
is more due to us, than it! :-)
I generally do a list
everyday of things to go and see, or do. A rough guide as to what might be
interesting. I have several bits of paper with things taken from the New
England books and I try and keep them in one spot. I was sorting
through the papers when we were in Mystic, in Southern Connecticut
and thought—oh damn, we didn't go and see the Dr Suess sculpture garden in Massachusetts!
Somehow I had missed it. It was just over the border from Connecticut,
directly north of us and would have been easy from where we were. Oh well, I
thought, that happens.
Not long afterwards, I was
on the computer and 'for some reason' I saw the news story on the tornadoes
in Massachusetts. I thought,
I'll just have a look at where they actually were! Omigod—guess
where! Yes, right there in Springfield, MA—home of the Dr Suess sculpture garden. Crikey! Thanks Universe and
Guides I said!
So often on this trip—I
have asked. Are we are on the right path? Are we going the right way? Three
times now, we have gotten deja vu feelings. Once in the Chinese restaurant in
Loudoun, TN.
Another time in Cape May, Joyzee, sitting next to
Theresa when we were at dinner at their camper. And Aaron had it again the
other day somewhere! The deja vu feeling is when all of a sudden, you
realize, you have had this conversation with this person before or been at
this exact place in time, doing this exact thing, but not in 'real
time.' You are replaying a moment in time. This is how you know that you
are in the right place, doing the right thing, with the right people. I
love these moments. So, despite feeling a bit wobbly at times on this trip or
being a bit out of sorts in the trough days—we continue to get things that
let us know we are doing the right thing! This is always reassuring.
My friend Vik asked me
today, how we will know when it's time to come off the road. I said,
"When one of us starts screaming and screaming and can't stop!"
I've got to the screaming stage a couple of times but not the screaming and
screaming—so I guess, we are still good to go! :-)
There are days when you
think, "If I spend one more day in this bloody camper, I will shoot
myself." Then it passes and it's fun again. One thing we do know, is
that we are always being looked after, as long as we follow what feels right
or wrong for us.
What's fascinating about the
tornado in Massachusetts is
that you think, but it's in Massachusetts—that's not THIS State! You feel stupidly protected by an invisible line
printed on a map. So, we are trusting the weather gods and hoping we are not
rearranging the weather patterns too much. After considering how close we
were to the tornadoes—we then wondered if Leo was a Tornado Squawker
Cat and his sudden and vehement squawkeness had to do with the weather
patterns, because he's settled down now and hasn't been the way he was, when
we were in Northern Connecticut. We will have to test
this over time. Hopefully, we will not get to test it often!
Needless to say—we have
had perfect weather all the way through. Thanks!!!
We were in Southern
Connecticut the last time I wrote. In the lovely wee seaport of Mystic, CT.
We went in there the next day and wandered around. So quaint and pretty. And
a busy wee seaway. There is a bridge in Mystic which goes across the main
channel, and is lifted whenever a yacht or boat wants to go through. Not very
big ones either. It happened several times in the short space of time we were
there. The bridge is a metal drawbridge that one side lifts up. It has huge
concrete counterweights on one side and as the bridge slowly lifts—it makes
these look like pieces of sponge rubber. Light and weightless. These enormous
concrete counterweights weigh in at about 230 tons EACH. The bridge gets
opened about 2,200 times a year and is greased and inspected every 100
openings! Quite remarkable.
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Mystic Seaport ~ where Mystic Pizza was filmed or based on.
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We stood and watched it
being opened and shut. Once dashing out from our lunch at the local
restaurant to trot up the street and watch the occasion. It takes about 5
minutes for this operation. And everyone stands and stares in fascination
each time it's done. It's rather magnificent! We got to see a rather old,
majestic 2 masted schooner of about 90
feet come through, flying Danish flags, with
quite a crew onboard. We waved and cheered, with the people standing next to
us. They had met the people, in the last few days and said they
were on their way eventually to the Azores! Wow.
From there, we drove
unceremoniously into Rhode Island—the smallest State in the Union. New
England is so small in reality, that you pop from State to State quite
easily. Rhode Island is not actually an island, but is part of the US
Mainland. Several theories run on why it's called an Island—none of which,
anyone can agree on it. It's full name is: State of Rhode Island
and Providence Plantations. The Providence Plantations was put to the General
Assembly to be dropped in 2009—with the general thinking that it gave the
misrepresentation of slavery with the Plantation in the name. It was voted
overwhelmingly though to keep the full name. So, there you have it.
We found Rhode Island a bit
more lively than Connecticut. Again—that arbitrary line on a map, but
somehow it did feel a bit different again.
Our first night there, we
stopped at a nice wee campground, parked up for a couple of hours—then went
off to a Triple A baseball game. The Major League teams have Minor League
feeder teams, which house young up and coming players, who hopefully,
eventually get picked to have their shot in the Majors. The Triple A's
are one step under the Majors. The Double A's, are the team under them. Then
there is an A League as well. There's a few layers to work through to
becoming a Major League player. But worth a trip up the ladder. Someone I
read about recently, got signed for a contract of $161 MILLION dollars.
Pretty wow huh! So, this is serious stuff.
Again, we got to see an
Oriole feeder team. But we can't quite bring ourselves to support the Orioles—they are not the greatest team. This time the Triple A Norfolk Tides
(Orioles feeder) against the Pawtucket Red Sox who are a feeder team for the
Boston Red Sox! I am hoping to see Troy Patton pitch but he's not playing
tonight. Both teams change pitchers quite often, giving everyone a shot, we
suppose. It's fascinating to see each pitcher come onto the mound. Each
pitcher has his own style. I love to watch these guys for their run-ups.
One pitcher stands
casually with the ball behind his back. He mentally eyes up the plate.
Another pitcher has a clothes routine each time. He hitches and pushes his
belt buckle in the middle, then he swipes his left buttock with his
hand. He does this every time. Another pitcher does the 'bird dog pointer
look' one hand behind his back, leaning forward eyeballing
the plate and the batter. Some of them, you can see the aggression
bouncing off them. Some pitch extremely fast but the ball seems like it's
floating in the slow motion. Each pitchers energy controls what the ball
looks like out there energetically. It's fascinating to watch.
I can't believe I've become
a baseball fan. I even know some of the names—how scary is that!
This stadium is the McCoy
Stadium and is famous for the longest baseball game in history. One game went
for 33 innings!!! 9 is the usual amount of innings in baseball. It was
played over 8 hours, and over 2 days in 1981. The Pawtucket Red Sox
played the Rochester Red Wings. They beat them 3-2 in the end. A super tight game!
Imagine it! So, this stadium was definitely on the stadiums to see list! How
cool.
We load up with food. Great
food here. Super hot crisp French fries, hot dogs with half a drink cup of
chili sauce and liquid cheese sauce. Soooo good. After we polish that off,
Aaron gets a piece of fried dough, which sounds disgusting, but is actually
doughnut dough rolled flat, instead of rounded and deep fried, then dusted
with icing/powdered sugar and cinnamon. Yummmm. We munch and watch and cheer
for the home team. It's good clean fun.
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| Fried dough... soooo good. |
The next day, we set off
for Newport, RI in the south. Before we leave the north, we pull into
the Awful Awful—an institution in Rhode Island. They are part of the
Newport Creamery, an ice cream place that makes the best shakes called—Awful Awfuls. Why? Because they are Awful Big and Awful Good! Truly. :-)
Despite the name—they ARE Awful-ly good! Aaron slurps down
one of those and we then head south, it only takes a couple of
hours to get down to Newport and we have gone from one end of the state
to the other!
Newport, is the scene of the
infamous winning or taking, (some might say,) of the America's Cup.
This was done by the Aussies in Australia II, with Alan Bond skippering
back in 1983. Since then, Newport has not held the America's Cup, after
having it since the 1930's. The Americans managed to get it
back in San Diego, but then lost it again to our own countrymen back
in 1995, when they had a shot at it in the yacht Black Magic, skippered
by Russell Coutts and won! America has been fighting to get it back
every since and finally did it in 2010.
Despite this, no one lynches
us, when they hear our New Zealand accents...
It's
quite a bustling wee town, in a nice type of way. So, we ask
the guides for a shady park for the RV. We park up in one of the towns
squares. A large expanse of grassy park, with big trees, surrounded by lovely
old Federal style houses, zillions of rhododendrons (now nicknamed the Flower
of New England by me—they are everywhere!) and also a large stone
structure.
It's a near perfect round tower, with 8 columns holding it up and
pasted together with stone, and slate. No one really knows what is was for.
But several theories abound. It is called the Old Stone Mill and is
commonly thought to be a 17th century windmill. A man is there the day we
look at it who runs a small museum and says it lines up with the sun and
moon as well. Whatever it is, it's quite fascinating and the gate is open on
the day, so we can go and stand in it and look up into it.
We then wander down the
street to the main street level of Newport, with the sea just over the road.
It's a big seaport and has a nice energy to it. The town itself is pretty and
inviting. We stock up on fridge magnets, cross another village green and head
back to the camper to go and see one of the big mansions here.
Newport used
to be a summer resort village for the very wealthy to get away to their
summer 'cottages.' The word cottage is said even more loosely than the ones
in Cape May. These are MANSIONS. On large plots of land, sometimes covering a
whole block, with many facing the ocean and built with everything money could
buy. Absolutely opulent and lavish. Rather beautiful.
We opt to go and see the
most famous of them all—The Breakers. Build by Cornelius Vanderbilt, the
railway magnate, it had every modern convenience that could be installed. For
it's day, it had electricity, which sometimes was a bit dodgy—so all the
lights were also installed with pull chains, that allowed for the gas to be
lit if the electricity failed. There was central heating throughout the
house, as well as huge fireplaces in several of the rooms. In a
recording by his daughter, she thought that building this house took her
fathers mind off his work. It was built at a cost of 260 million dollars by
todays standards. 70 rooms and 65,000 sq feet. My first house was 2.800 sq
feet and had 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, with 2 dining rooms and 2 living rooms and
was a lovely big house, if this gives you some idea!
In those days, most of the
summer 'cottages' only had one bathroom, but this house had 20! And big
cavernous white tiled cold feeling rooms they were too. The baths are carved
out of solid marble and are several inches thick. They are so thick, that the
servants used to have to fill, empty and refill the bath several times, until
it was warm enough to hold the temperature of the water. All the baths and
basins have 4 taps on them. 2 for fresh water and 2 for salt water. Sometimes
a person would have a couple of baths a day. The sheets were changed on the
beds twice a day. And most of the ladies changed up to 4 times a day! The
laundry was horrendous.
There were 33 servants rooms
and a house of 40 servants. Each servant had a specific job. All he might do
all day was polish the silver or polishing the doorknobs. Imagine the boredom
and the tedium! But people seemed to like their jobs and enjoy working for
the Vanderbilt, who referred to their servants as The Staff.
The house itself is utterly
beautiful and was built in the late 1890's. It was called the 'Gilded
Age' when very wealthy families like the Vanderbilts built and owned homes
like this. Not always said in a complimentary way either. Some felt it was a
frivolous flaunting of wealth and ostentatious snobbery. Despite that, I
thought it was gorgeous. The attention to detail in the carving of wood and
marble was exquisite. Each room was just breath taking. One room has PLATINUM
leaf on the walls! No detail here is too small. Even the ceilings are all a
work of art.
The house is centered around
the great hall which is 50ft by 50ft, and 2 stories high. They held many
glamorous balls and parties here. Six rooms lead off this room, and each of
these rooms are also large and opulent. The library, billiard room, sitting
rooms, dining rooms. Rich velvets and silks on the upholstery and all
the furnishings here are the original Vanderbilt furnishings. Extremely
beautiful. Many of the rooms panels were made in France and shipped
to America where they were assembled on site by American craftsman. The
house is a mix of Italianate and French design and decor. All throughout
the house, you see touches of the dolphin theme, which is an
old hospitality symbol. You see it worked into mosaic or paintings. One
room is entirely mosaic in tiny tiles.
I thought this was as lovely
as Versailles Palace, in France, if not lovelier. It was easier to take
in. You could imagine people living here—just. Unlike Versailles
though, which is so opulent, and rather stiff in a way, that it is not
surprising that Marie Antoinette needed to escape every so often
to Le Petit Trianon for a more relaxed way of living.
This house was LAVISH...and
almost like a small palace. It was utterly gorgeous and I am so glad we went
to see it. It was easy to see and not so large, that by the end of it, you
were on sensory overload. We came away from there relaxed and peaceful.
This level of opulence always gives me a lovely feeling of rightness. I enjoy
it a lot.
We parked up in a nearby
town, 'Ye olde Sardine RV park'—so close together you could just about
touch the camper next door! Never mind, we said—it's just for one night! We
took ourselves off to The Atlantic Beach Club for dinner, where we ate the
divine lobster dishes! We also got to try Quahogs! If you have ever seen the
cartoon Family Guy—you'll get the significance of Quahogs! They are
basically large clams. Nice and sweet.
This is where I heard the
Crowded House song...and it reminded me of just how much we are being looked
after—weather wise and energy wise, people, places, things on this trip!
And that people like the Vanderbilts had visions and dreams and just went
after them, despite snotty remarks from journalists of the day. I admire
those people. I like their style. It reminds me of a time when people were
not afraid to be opulent and extravagant and whimsical. How often do we get
whimsical these days? I love that!
Today my Chinese fortune
cookie said: Only those who dare, truly live.
I agree.
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