Before the summer was to come to an end, the miss and I wanted to go on a camping trip, and originally the idea was to go with a group of other people, but for various reasons that never took shape so we just decided to go ourselves. The last time we went camping was back in August of 2008 and things didn't go so smoothly. We had issues keeping our tent stable for more than ten minutes at a time (one of the sticks to hold it actually snapped), and we had no idea how cold it could get in the woods and spent both nights "camping" in the car. That previous trip was in Upstate New York, this time we were heading further north to Rhode Island's Burlingame State Park.
We wanted to see more of Rhode Island than just the camping grounds and were going include mini-road trip stops to Block Island and the vintage New England town of Newport. Reserve America is the best website to find available camping sites across the country and to book reservations. Some hotspot areas are all booked up until October, but Burlingame had vacancy for the time we planned on going. One could reserve a regular spot at fourteen dollars a night, and either bring a tent or RV truck to the site, or a cabin can be obtained for thirty-five a night. The only thing with cabins is they usually go quick and need to be booked well in advanced. Depending on the camp, some cabins are larger and more expensive, but splitting the cost among compatriots makes it very reasonable. The drive up there took about three hours and we really could've made it sooner had not for occasional traffic on the 1-95 and getting lost thanks to incoherent driving directions from Google. It's really important to get up there before the sun goes down because it is one of those places without any streetlight or signs of life. By the time we arrived to the office to check in the sun was still up for a little while and we were able to comfortably take out time setting up. Another good feature of most of these camping spots is that you can park your vehicle right up we're you're staying. This way you don't have to worry about carrying a ton of items back and forth. The car serves as a great place to store foods and goods, plus provides a backup plan in case its freezing out.
With more experience under our belts we erected our tent properly without breaking anything this time. Since we knew we would be arriving late and wouldn't have time to cook the first night, we brought a pre-cooked chicken and some rice from Key Food to have for dinner. The family in the spot next to us were absolute pros at this and were all decked out with tables, water coolers, grills, propane tanks, lamps, canopies, you name it. There was a bunch of them that night, and by the next day more of them came and even brought two small annoyingly-yapping dogs. The father (or grandfather) of the family had a real scratchy horse voice, and found the need to speak every two seconds. We went to bed quite early after our glorious chicken dinner and found trouble getting to fall asleep with the noisy neighbors around us. The family was one thing, but then on the other side of us was this other group of rocket-engineers that, although only sitting a foot away from eachother around a campfire, had to talk as loud as possible and burp the beer they were slugging. With each passing hour of nightfall the inside of the tent grew colder and colder, and my bones were stiff from sleeping on the ground's freezing surface. She feel asleep somehow, but I was still wide-awake trying to get myself comfortable and warm. I might've dozed off for a few minutes at a time throughout the night, but what I remember most was looking at the top of the tent until a little piece of sunrise hit it. It was quite a long night and I was so cold that I evacuated to my usual spot, the car, to watch the rest of the sunrise and perhaps catch a few winks before we would start our day.
It turns out I wasn't able to fall asleep there either, but at least I was warmer. I ventured off to the nearby porta-potties to check out their condition, and they were atrocious as one could expect, plus wanted to see the water pump next to them. The water from the pump defiantly shouldn't be drank, as it comes out as a milky substance which turns into water after five minutes. For important bathroom issues, including showers, a ten-minute walk away takes you to a cleaner and more sophisticated bathroom/shower area. There is also a dumpster close to the sites too for any trash that needs to be disposed of. There was one grizzly-looking gentleman up early as I was as well and commented on my bright pajama pants on his way to dump some bags into the dumpster. While she slept I entertained myself by watching the woodpeckers and other birds fly around and go into their morning routines. My belly started rumbling with hunger, so for more entertainment I felt I should make breakfast. Each camping site has its own spot for a fireplace, but with the ground moist from the morning dew, I wasn't positive I would be able to get a flame started. I found a large stick which I snapped into two pieces, which I would lay the pan upon. Under that I made a small mountain of charcoal, dosed it in lighter fluid, and lit it up. To my surprise I got a fire, and a pretty good one at that. My special that morning was going to be sunnyside-up eggs with toast. I had to wake her up from the inside freezer of a tent to give her a plate, she might've slept another three hours if I hadn't.
The first trip we were going to take, while we were stationed at the camping grounds, was Block Island. It requires a ferry ride from Port Judith, a short car ride from where we were staying, and geographically its located in the middle of Rhode Island and Montauk, NY., but for whatever reason its property of Rhode Island. There's other ferry service from Block Island that reaches Montauk too, and visa versa. You can park your car a few yards away from where the ferry docks, its ten dollars flat, whether you're going to island for a few hours or sleeping overnight. Tickets for the ferry are about twenty dollars per adult for a round trip. Cars are allowed on the ferry, but that ups the ticket price to fifty bucks, and usually requires an advanced reservation instead of just walking up to the ticket window. With the traffic congestion and difficulty to find parking on Block Island, plus the availability to rent bikes or mopeds, it doesn't make much sense to bring a car. The boat ride takes about forty-five minutes, but there are bathrooms as well as a snack room to buy food and drink. The ferry is also dog and bicycle-friendly and carries several hundred people at a time. Sitting across from us was a family, and the husband stood up for a moment and didn't realize he dropped about three hundred dollars worth of twenty-dollar bills. The boat hadn't left yet, but there was a strong breeze blowing off the water, so I scooped up the cash as fast as I could. Part of me wishes I didn't know who the money came from, and the guy still didn't realize anything as he attended to his two small daughters sitting in folding chairs along the side of the boat, but with too many witnesses I had to give him the money back. The three hundred dollar lottery prize would've been nice.
It reminded me of a scene from the movie "Jaws" when the ferry finally pulled into Block Island and hoards of people got off the boat with their cars and bikes - ready to enjoy the amenities of the summer destination. We toyed with the idea of renting bikes or a moped, but bike prices were about twenty-dollars an hour (although later we saw a place charging only twenty-five for the whole day) and the moped was roughly seventy-five dollars for two hours. The moped was very enticing, but ultimately we classified it as too pricey and decided to stick around the main area on foot. The island has plenty of great attractions, but to explore the whole island a bike or some vehicle is needed. Going on foot is fine since most of the shops and restaurants, plus some beaches, are all near were the ferry lets you off. The sun was quite strong, so I found myself a cup of chocolate mint gelato from Beckett's Authentic Gelato to cool down. Instead of mint chocolate chip (my favorite flavor) this chocolate mint worked in reserve and tasted like the mint Girl Scout cookie. I saw that there was one movie theater on the premises, Empire, displaying two shows only. About every other house on the island is an Inn or Bed and Breakfast, and I would wage most of them had no vacancies anytime soon. By the time my gelato was eaten, and melted, we came across the Island Free Library, opposed to the Island Not-Free Library perhaps. Out front the had a cart in which they were selling old books for only two dollars each. I found "Contract Killer" a good selection to add to my true crime book collection. After we hit a few gift and antique shops, but saw nothing worthwhile other than an old postcard. For lunch we stopped off at Finn's Restaurant for a bowl of New England Clam Chowder, raw clams, and steamed mussels in garlic sauce. Finn's also has a downstairs marketplace for fresh seafood to take home, and we picked up some more clams before leaving the island to cook that night back at our camp site.
The final goal we had for Block Island was the beach, and there's plenty to choose from. Most of them are free beaches you can walk up on, but a couple charge a five or ten dollar fee. We found a freebie beach easily, but ended up paying twenty dollars to rent a large beach umbrella. I've never experienced a New England beach before and I found the water to have a dense crispiness to it that I thoroughly enjoyed. There were alot of large rocks exposed underneath that reminded me alot of Haiti, I had to be careful not to stub my toe. There was one huge rock many yards out that swimmers were able to converge upon. In fact, one guy was out there wearing a halloween mask of the character Pinhead from the Hellraiser horror franchise and trying to scare people with it. I made the grand swim to the big rock, and it didn't seem far out, but it zapped alot of energy out of me. Going there and getting back to shore through the light waves had me out of breath by the time I reached the sand again. I had to lay down after that, and coupled with the fact I only slept for ten minutes the night before, I was able to get in a nice nap of the sand before we had to get ready to leave. When the ferry took us back and we had the car again, we made a little visit to a Stop-n-Shop supermarket to pick up a few items we needed, one of them being bread. We find one bread option on sale, one we normally get in New York, and the sale is two for four dollars. When it comes time to pay the cashier informs us we need the Stop-n-Shop card in order to get the special deal. In most supermarkets, even if you don't have the precious little card, the cashier will typically swipe her's for you or have the manager come over to do the swipe. The main point is they're overstocked in a certain item and they need to get it off the shelves before it molds. So we weren't getting swiped, so we just told her to forget the bread. I went back to the bread section after and saw a loaf of Wonderbread with a $1.99 tag on it, but when I scanned it at the self-checkout lane, the price came up at $3.50. Wanting to get back to the camping ground before the sun was gone, I just got the falsely priced bread and accepted the supermarket corruption.
After the beach a shower was certainly needed, so that night I ventured to the bathhouse to shower off and was worried when I saw each shower was equipped with a coin-operated machine. I didn't have any change of me and didn't feel like a fifteen minute walk back and forth to grab some from the car. Upon closer look I noticed there was two quarters right on top of the machine, and that would be enough for three minutes of water, which was enough. I don't know who left the quarters, but it was a small consolation prize for losing out on the three hundred dollars. Getting back to our camp site after the shower proved to be a challenge in the pitch-black darkness. I was on a road which I thought was the right way back, but I was seeing RVs and tents that were looking very unfamiliar. Other campers were still up and I saw fires in several different directions, but walking in total darkness wasn't a treat at all. I felt at any moment maybe a bear or wolf might just pop out of nowhere. When I reached our tent again I was rather set to just sleep in the car and not go through another round and freezing and being uncomfortable, but she was able to made some modifications to the inside of the tent which made the surface softer and warmer. That and being tired still from Block Island allowed, to my surprise, for me to fall asleep. Things were going quite well with the sleep until I woke up and heard a poking noises on the tent; it was raining! There wasn't much we could've done about it, so we just went back to sleep. I remember waking up again a few hours later, this time it seemed the roof of the tent was caving in from the water. She insisted it was my imagination, but I was getting worried we would get dumped on with water real soon. Overall the tent held it's own against the hard downpour and we only felt a few occasional drops reaching our faces.
That morning we wanted to walk the Burlingame hiking trail before driving up to Newport, but with the continuous rainy conditions and the likelihood the trail would be muddy, we skipped that and made the drive. Oddly enough, to get to Newport we had to go over the Verrazzano Bridge, but not the Verrazzano Bridge more known with the contraption that connects Brooklyn to Staten Island, this is the Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge that connects the island of Jamestown with the mainland of Rhode Island. There is a toll, two dollars per axel, which worked out to four bucks each way for my car. Rain continued to fall from the sky and as soon as we were off the highway we were instantly greeted with Aardvark Antiques. Again with the movie references, they have a large collection inside similar to the final minutes to the film "Citizen Kane". There were pinball machines, an old gas pump, even a large wooden horse with an asking price of five thousand dollars. I really wished I could've walked out with the old-time cigarette machine I saw, but again what would I do with that anyways. We left and drove on for a few minutes to the main section of Newport, and from there we had to park the car. It's a very tightly packed area were driving is near impossible, you need to walk it. Public paid parking is the only option as you need a residential sticker to park near a house, and good luck finding a spot there anyways. Most lots charge about ten dollars, we ended up using a ticketed-meter place had to pay fifteen dollars for the two plus hours we were parked there. The sidewalks are tiny and annoying to walk on with hundreds of other pedestrians, and the chilly wind with rain falling wasn't making it any more comfortable. There's a nice charm to the town with its brick roads and European ally-ways, but it must be much more enjoyable on a clear summer or spring day. There were shops of course; for gifts, clothing, art galleries, restaurants, bars, and fudge. Alot like Block Island had, many large houses served as Inns and Bed and Breakfast places.
With all those great features, our first taste of Newport was the Artillery Company outpost that now serves as a military museum. There was an old guy inside and he asked if we would like a tour, but we told him we would just browse around, and there's no charge for that. The guy looked bored out of his mind and I could tell he was dying to give a tour, but then he might ask for a donation or something and I knew I was already getting hammered with the parking. It was a very impressive collection of uniforms from about all of the wars throughout American history, plus uniforms and military items from other countries. Perhaps if parking was free in Newport I would've taken him up on his tour offer, I'm sure it would be very interesting. Spring Street is a little more hip with a number of bars and music stores, but we struck gold when we came upon another antique shop with a sign on the side of the building that read, "This is Not a Museum - This Junk is For Sale", but junk this stuff was not. I didn't catch the name of the place, I just know it was stuffed wall to wall with antique treasures, and by that I mean toys. My eyes had to do a double-take when I saw a wrapped action figure of the Dick Tracy villain The Tramp. Many years ago I had the the collection of these Dick Tracy figures (unwrapped as I would play with them) and the only character I was missing was The Tramp. Advocates for the homeless or some other social service group found the character and the toy to be offensive towards homeless people, and as a result the toy was eventually banned and removed from store shelves. My last opportunity to get my hands on The Tramp was in a Toys-R-Us back in the early 90's, it was sitting in a two-dollar sales bin after the ban had taken effect, mixed in with other toys. I don't know why I did this, but instead of The Tramp, I used my two dollars to buy a King Kong doll as I was also into Godzilla stuff at the time as well. It was a decision I've long regretted and I still think about it time to time these many years later. Sure, I could've probably just gotten it from Ebay eventually, but there's a certain magic when you see it in a store and its looking right back at you. The asking price was fifteen dollars and that was an absolute bargain to cure twenty years of regret.
Hunger began to set in so we made our way over to Buskers, an Irish bar/restaurant, and I actually found out what a quahog was. More or less its a stuffed clam, but what gives it an extra kick is it includes peppers and cheese to add some spice. My main dish was an Irish Breakfast (at 2pm) and it was a food overload that included two sunnyside-up eggs, ham, two sausages, bangers and rangers (basically more sausages), beans, bread, and a grilled tomato (which I totally didn't eat). The final stop of our seemingly antique marathon was the Antique Armory. It's a large showcase venue that features the goods of dozens of different antique dealers, but they're not there. Just about everything is enclosed in glass cases and the operators of the armory have to go with you to unlock the case, give you the item to look at, and then you decide if you want it or not. Then after the item is purchased, the money goes to the dealer, but I'm sure the armory gets a percentage for fostering the sale. The skies started to clear a little when we were back in the car, so we ended our Newport adventure with a tour through the scenic route of Ocean Drive. It's an eye-popping view of large mansions and manors that must all cost a hundred fortunes over. Along the coastline, there are even spots you can park your car and enjoy the magnificent views of the water and rocks. We certainly made time to pull over and check it out. I was very interested in seeing the seagulls perched up on the rocks and making dives into the water in search of fish. We were back at the camp again before the sun was about to call it a day, and still full from the food at Buskers, we came to the decision of ending our trip a little early. If we were going to cook something, that's different, but since we weren't cooking and we had to leave the next morning anyways, why spend the night there just to wake up and leave, why not just go now? Ideally, we wanted to head back to New York the next day and make a quick stop in Mystic, Connecticut for Mystic Pizza, but we figured it wasn't worth staying extra for, as great as that pizza is. So we took up camp (though Burlingame was only used for boarding if anything) and headed back to the comforts of home.
I'm living in New York City, but I had to drive up to Rhode Island to find a homeless person......
We wanted to see more of Rhode Island than just the camping grounds and were going include mini-road trip stops to Block Island and the vintage New England town of Newport. Reserve America is the best website to find available camping sites across the country and to book reservations. Some hotspot areas are all booked up until October, but Burlingame had vacancy for the time we planned on going. One could reserve a regular spot at fourteen dollars a night, and either bring a tent or RV truck to the site, or a cabin can be obtained for thirty-five a night. The only thing with cabins is they usually go quick and need to be booked well in advanced. Depending on the camp, some cabins are larger and more expensive, but splitting the cost among compatriots makes it very reasonable. The drive up there took about three hours and we really could've made it sooner had not for occasional traffic on the 1-95 and getting lost thanks to incoherent driving directions from Google. It's really important to get up there before the sun goes down because it is one of those places without any streetlight or signs of life. By the time we arrived to the office to check in the sun was still up for a little while and we were able to comfortably take out time setting up. Another good feature of most of these camping spots is that you can park your vehicle right up we're you're staying. This way you don't have to worry about carrying a ton of items back and forth. The car serves as a great place to store foods and goods, plus provides a backup plan in case its freezing out.
With more experience under our belts we erected our tent properly without breaking anything this time. Since we knew we would be arriving late and wouldn't have time to cook the first night, we brought a pre-cooked chicken and some rice from Key Food to have for dinner. The family in the spot next to us were absolute pros at this and were all decked out with tables, water coolers, grills, propane tanks, lamps, canopies, you name it. There was a bunch of them that night, and by the next day more of them came and even brought two small annoyingly-yapping dogs. The father (or grandfather) of the family had a real scratchy horse voice, and found the need to speak every two seconds. We went to bed quite early after our glorious chicken dinner and found trouble getting to fall asleep with the noisy neighbors around us. The family was one thing, but then on the other side of us was this other group of rocket-engineers that, although only sitting a foot away from eachother around a campfire, had to talk as loud as possible and burp the beer they were slugging. With each passing hour of nightfall the inside of the tent grew colder and colder, and my bones were stiff from sleeping on the ground's freezing surface. She feel asleep somehow, but I was still wide-awake trying to get myself comfortable and warm. I might've dozed off for a few minutes at a time throughout the night, but what I remember most was looking at the top of the tent until a little piece of sunrise hit it. It was quite a long night and I was so cold that I evacuated to my usual spot, the car, to watch the rest of the sunrise and perhaps catch a few winks before we would start our day.
It turns out I wasn't able to fall asleep there either, but at least I was warmer. I ventured off to the nearby porta-potties to check out their condition, and they were atrocious as one could expect, plus wanted to see the water pump next to them. The water from the pump defiantly shouldn't be drank, as it comes out as a milky substance which turns into water after five minutes. For important bathroom issues, including showers, a ten-minute walk away takes you to a cleaner and more sophisticated bathroom/shower area. There is also a dumpster close to the sites too for any trash that needs to be disposed of. There was one grizzly-looking gentleman up early as I was as well and commented on my bright pajama pants on his way to dump some bags into the dumpster. While she slept I entertained myself by watching the woodpeckers and other birds fly around and go into their morning routines. My belly started rumbling with hunger, so for more entertainment I felt I should make breakfast. Each camping site has its own spot for a fireplace, but with the ground moist from the morning dew, I wasn't positive I would be able to get a flame started. I found a large stick which I snapped into two pieces, which I would lay the pan upon. Under that I made a small mountain of charcoal, dosed it in lighter fluid, and lit it up. To my surprise I got a fire, and a pretty good one at that. My special that morning was going to be sunnyside-up eggs with toast. I had to wake her up from the inside freezer of a tent to give her a plate, she might've slept another three hours if I hadn't.
The first trip we were going to take, while we were stationed at the camping grounds, was Block Island. It requires a ferry ride from Port Judith, a short car ride from where we were staying, and geographically its located in the middle of Rhode Island and Montauk, NY., but for whatever reason its property of Rhode Island. There's other ferry service from Block Island that reaches Montauk too, and visa versa. You can park your car a few yards away from where the ferry docks, its ten dollars flat, whether you're going to island for a few hours or sleeping overnight. Tickets for the ferry are about twenty dollars per adult for a round trip. Cars are allowed on the ferry, but that ups the ticket price to fifty bucks, and usually requires an advanced reservation instead of just walking up to the ticket window. With the traffic congestion and difficulty to find parking on Block Island, plus the availability to rent bikes or mopeds, it doesn't make much sense to bring a car. The boat ride takes about forty-five minutes, but there are bathrooms as well as a snack room to buy food and drink. The ferry is also dog and bicycle-friendly and carries several hundred people at a time. Sitting across from us was a family, and the husband stood up for a moment and didn't realize he dropped about three hundred dollars worth of twenty-dollar bills. The boat hadn't left yet, but there was a strong breeze blowing off the water, so I scooped up the cash as fast as I could. Part of me wishes I didn't know who the money came from, and the guy still didn't realize anything as he attended to his two small daughters sitting in folding chairs along the side of the boat, but with too many witnesses I had to give him the money back. The three hundred dollar lottery prize would've been nice.
It reminded me of a scene from the movie "Jaws" when the ferry finally pulled into Block Island and hoards of people got off the boat with their cars and bikes - ready to enjoy the amenities of the summer destination. We toyed with the idea of renting bikes or a moped, but bike prices were about twenty-dollars an hour (although later we saw a place charging only twenty-five for the whole day) and the moped was roughly seventy-five dollars for two hours. The moped was very enticing, but ultimately we classified it as too pricey and decided to stick around the main area on foot. The island has plenty of great attractions, but to explore the whole island a bike or some vehicle is needed. Going on foot is fine since most of the shops and restaurants, plus some beaches, are all near were the ferry lets you off. The sun was quite strong, so I found myself a cup of chocolate mint gelato from Beckett's Authentic Gelato to cool down. Instead of mint chocolate chip (my favorite flavor) this chocolate mint worked in reserve and tasted like the mint Girl Scout cookie. I saw that there was one movie theater on the premises, Empire, displaying two shows only. About every other house on the island is an Inn or Bed and Breakfast, and I would wage most of them had no vacancies anytime soon. By the time my gelato was eaten, and melted, we came across the Island Free Library, opposed to the Island Not-Free Library perhaps. Out front the had a cart in which they were selling old books for only two dollars each. I found "Contract Killer" a good selection to add to my true crime book collection. After we hit a few gift and antique shops, but saw nothing worthwhile other than an old postcard. For lunch we stopped off at Finn's Restaurant for a bowl of New England Clam Chowder, raw clams, and steamed mussels in garlic sauce. Finn's also has a downstairs marketplace for fresh seafood to take home, and we picked up some more clams before leaving the island to cook that night back at our camp site.
The final goal we had for Block Island was the beach, and there's plenty to choose from. Most of them are free beaches you can walk up on, but a couple charge a five or ten dollar fee. We found a freebie beach easily, but ended up paying twenty dollars to rent a large beach umbrella. I've never experienced a New England beach before and I found the water to have a dense crispiness to it that I thoroughly enjoyed. There were alot of large rocks exposed underneath that reminded me alot of Haiti, I had to be careful not to stub my toe. There was one huge rock many yards out that swimmers were able to converge upon. In fact, one guy was out there wearing a halloween mask of the character Pinhead from the Hellraiser horror franchise and trying to scare people with it. I made the grand swim to the big rock, and it didn't seem far out, but it zapped alot of energy out of me. Going there and getting back to shore through the light waves had me out of breath by the time I reached the sand again. I had to lay down after that, and coupled with the fact I only slept for ten minutes the night before, I was able to get in a nice nap of the sand before we had to get ready to leave. When the ferry took us back and we had the car again, we made a little visit to a Stop-n-Shop supermarket to pick up a few items we needed, one of them being bread. We find one bread option on sale, one we normally get in New York, and the sale is two for four dollars. When it comes time to pay the cashier informs us we need the Stop-n-Shop card in order to get the special deal. In most supermarkets, even if you don't have the precious little card, the cashier will typically swipe her's for you or have the manager come over to do the swipe. The main point is they're overstocked in a certain item and they need to get it off the shelves before it molds. So we weren't getting swiped, so we just told her to forget the bread. I went back to the bread section after and saw a loaf of Wonderbread with a $1.99 tag on it, but when I scanned it at the self-checkout lane, the price came up at $3.50. Wanting to get back to the camping ground before the sun was gone, I just got the falsely priced bread and accepted the supermarket corruption.
After the beach a shower was certainly needed, so that night I ventured to the bathhouse to shower off and was worried when I saw each shower was equipped with a coin-operated machine. I didn't have any change of me and didn't feel like a fifteen minute walk back and forth to grab some from the car. Upon closer look I noticed there was two quarters right on top of the machine, and that would be enough for three minutes of water, which was enough. I don't know who left the quarters, but it was a small consolation prize for losing out on the three hundred dollars. Getting back to our camp site after the shower proved to be a challenge in the pitch-black darkness. I was on a road which I thought was the right way back, but I was seeing RVs and tents that were looking very unfamiliar. Other campers were still up and I saw fires in several different directions, but walking in total darkness wasn't a treat at all. I felt at any moment maybe a bear or wolf might just pop out of nowhere. When I reached our tent again I was rather set to just sleep in the car and not go through another round and freezing and being uncomfortable, but she was able to made some modifications to the inside of the tent which made the surface softer and warmer. That and being tired still from Block Island allowed, to my surprise, for me to fall asleep. Things were going quite well with the sleep until I woke up and heard a poking noises on the tent; it was raining! There wasn't much we could've done about it, so we just went back to sleep. I remember waking up again a few hours later, this time it seemed the roof of the tent was caving in from the water. She insisted it was my imagination, but I was getting worried we would get dumped on with water real soon. Overall the tent held it's own against the hard downpour and we only felt a few occasional drops reaching our faces.
That morning we wanted to walk the Burlingame hiking trail before driving up to Newport, but with the continuous rainy conditions and the likelihood the trail would be muddy, we skipped that and made the drive. Oddly enough, to get to Newport we had to go over the Verrazzano Bridge, but not the Verrazzano Bridge more known with the contraption that connects Brooklyn to Staten Island, this is the Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge that connects the island of Jamestown with the mainland of Rhode Island. There is a toll, two dollars per axel, which worked out to four bucks each way for my car. Rain continued to fall from the sky and as soon as we were off the highway we were instantly greeted with Aardvark Antiques. Again with the movie references, they have a large collection inside similar to the final minutes to the film "Citizen Kane". There were pinball machines, an old gas pump, even a large wooden horse with an asking price of five thousand dollars. I really wished I could've walked out with the old-time cigarette machine I saw, but again what would I do with that anyways. We left and drove on for a few minutes to the main section of Newport, and from there we had to park the car. It's a very tightly packed area were driving is near impossible, you need to walk it. Public paid parking is the only option as you need a residential sticker to park near a house, and good luck finding a spot there anyways. Most lots charge about ten dollars, we ended up using a ticketed-meter place had to pay fifteen dollars for the two plus hours we were parked there. The sidewalks are tiny and annoying to walk on with hundreds of other pedestrians, and the chilly wind with rain falling wasn't making it any more comfortable. There's a nice charm to the town with its brick roads and European ally-ways, but it must be much more enjoyable on a clear summer or spring day. There were shops of course; for gifts, clothing, art galleries, restaurants, bars, and fudge. Alot like Block Island had, many large houses served as Inns and Bed and Breakfast places.
With all those great features, our first taste of Newport was the Artillery Company outpost that now serves as a military museum. There was an old guy inside and he asked if we would like a tour, but we told him we would just browse around, and there's no charge for that. The guy looked bored out of his mind and I could tell he was dying to give a tour, but then he might ask for a donation or something and I knew I was already getting hammered with the parking. It was a very impressive collection of uniforms from about all of the wars throughout American history, plus uniforms and military items from other countries. Perhaps if parking was free in Newport I would've taken him up on his tour offer, I'm sure it would be very interesting. Spring Street is a little more hip with a number of bars and music stores, but we struck gold when we came upon another antique shop with a sign on the side of the building that read, "This is Not a Museum - This Junk is For Sale", but junk this stuff was not. I didn't catch the name of the place, I just know it was stuffed wall to wall with antique treasures, and by that I mean toys. My eyes had to do a double-take when I saw a wrapped action figure of the Dick Tracy villain The Tramp. Many years ago I had the the collection of these Dick Tracy figures (unwrapped as I would play with them) and the only character I was missing was The Tramp. Advocates for the homeless or some other social service group found the character and the toy to be offensive towards homeless people, and as a result the toy was eventually banned and removed from store shelves. My last opportunity to get my hands on The Tramp was in a Toys-R-Us back in the early 90's, it was sitting in a two-dollar sales bin after the ban had taken effect, mixed in with other toys. I don't know why I did this, but instead of The Tramp, I used my two dollars to buy a King Kong doll as I was also into Godzilla stuff at the time as well. It was a decision I've long regretted and I still think about it time to time these many years later. Sure, I could've probably just gotten it from Ebay eventually, but there's a certain magic when you see it in a store and its looking right back at you. The asking price was fifteen dollars and that was an absolute bargain to cure twenty years of regret.
Hunger began to set in so we made our way over to Buskers, an Irish bar/restaurant, and I actually found out what a quahog was. More or less its a stuffed clam, but what gives it an extra kick is it includes peppers and cheese to add some spice. My main dish was an Irish Breakfast (at 2pm) and it was a food overload that included two sunnyside-up eggs, ham, two sausages, bangers and rangers (basically more sausages), beans, bread, and a grilled tomato (which I totally didn't eat). The final stop of our seemingly antique marathon was the Antique Armory. It's a large showcase venue that features the goods of dozens of different antique dealers, but they're not there. Just about everything is enclosed in glass cases and the operators of the armory have to go with you to unlock the case, give you the item to look at, and then you decide if you want it or not. Then after the item is purchased, the money goes to the dealer, but I'm sure the armory gets a percentage for fostering the sale. The skies started to clear a little when we were back in the car, so we ended our Newport adventure with a tour through the scenic route of Ocean Drive. It's an eye-popping view of large mansions and manors that must all cost a hundred fortunes over. Along the coastline, there are even spots you can park your car and enjoy the magnificent views of the water and rocks. We certainly made time to pull over and check it out. I was very interested in seeing the seagulls perched up on the rocks and making dives into the water in search of fish. We were back at the camp again before the sun was about to call it a day, and still full from the food at Buskers, we came to the decision of ending our trip a little early. If we were going to cook something, that's different, but since we weren't cooking and we had to leave the next morning anyways, why spend the night there just to wake up and leave, why not just go now? Ideally, we wanted to head back to New York the next day and make a quick stop in Mystic, Connecticut for Mystic Pizza, but we figured it wasn't worth staying extra for, as great as that pizza is. So we took up camp (though Burlingame was only used for boarding if anything) and headed back to the comforts of home.
I'm living in New York City, but I had to drive up to Rhode Island to find a homeless person......
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