Our Travel Blog

Today was hot, humid but dry. We took advantage of the weather and headed out to Newport, Rhode Island… I know I said Providence yesterday, but today it was Newport.

Newport is about 90 miles away and took us a couple of hours to get there. As we crossed over the large (300ft high) bridge across Narragansett Bay we saw one of the larger Princess cruise ships at anchor. This coupled with the fact that today was the first good day for some time meant the place was likely to be crowded.

First stop was the Tourist Information office, although Lyn had made up a list of things to do and see we still needed local maps. As we started down the main street we saw just how crowded the place was with both cars and people.

Once we had local maps in hand we set out to find lunch, ideally we would have liked to try and find a seafood place on one of the many wharves but parking was at a premium so we moved on a bit further. We finally found a place next door to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. We sat munching overlooking a well kept grass court!

Next stop was to go see the mansions on Bellevue Avenue. These mansions were built as summer homes for New Yorks high society in the late 1800’s. Surprisingly these mansions were built inland and not on the coast. Many of the homes are now open to the public.

Next was a slow drive around the Scenic Ocean Drive. As the name suggests this was a route around the coastline south-east of the city. There were many look-out points and small bays where you could stop and go down to the waters edge, unfortunately there were no sandy beaches. The Scenic Drive finished near the marina area of Newport where there were boats of every shape and size.

Next we went across to the other side of the island to the Cliff Walk. This is a 3.5 mile walk along the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. The city have created a paved walk right on the cliffs edge.

Once we started walking we saw many more mansions, these with a spectacular ocean view.

We decided that we would sell the trailer and move into one of the mansions, the only problem; which one should we choose?

Woke up to 70 degree temperatures, but still humid. The good news…. no rain all day. We took a walk around the campground which as full as we had seen it. Quite surprising considering the forecast. After lunch Lyn decided to to go visit the multitude of antique stores in Palmer, one of the local towns. I politely declined her invitation to join her. Instead I spent some time fighting the internet, and trying to work out why, when I finished a Skype contact with somebody their phone would always ring…. very bizarre.

Tonight there must have been some sort of party going on as there was quite a lot of noise as late as 10:30, to put that in perspective, all human noise normally ceases before 8:30. Wild life noise is another thing, this is probably the noisiest place I have been for wild life noise, during the day it is chipmunks (in there hundreds, I’m sure). At night crickets, frogs and other assorted beasties take up the chorus.

Hopefully tomorrow will remain dry and we will head out to Newport, Rhode Island.

No pictures today as the beautiful deep orange sunset photos we took didn’t come out too well.

Another wet day….. it’s worse than being in the UK!

Luckily we both have a number of hobbies to keep us occupied as the forecast is for rain and or showers for the next week. Hopefully we’ll get a few clear days as there are still a couple of trips we’d like to make, as well as some more exploring around the local area.

Although the temperature has gone back up, lows around 60 and highs around 78 the humidity has risen and there was plenty of rain overnight and this morning.

Today was a shopping (groceries) day, apart from that we didn’t go out.

I did receive a new “toy” in the mail, this has helped boost the Wifi Signal to more usable levels, and has increased its throughput which has helped a lot with phone calls.

Unfortunately the forecast for the next week is (so far) pretty consistent. Showers, thunderstorms but at least warm each day.

Summer is back, twenty four hours with no heating!! Woke up to a foggy start to the day, but it soon started to burn off. We headed out to the Mass Turnpike for the 80 mile journey east.

As you should know by now we are early risers, so managed to miss the rush hour traffic…. by arriving after it had died down. Thankfully we had the GPS with us as navigation around Boston would have been a nightmare just map reading (especially as someone forgot the map!).

In recent years we have become firm believers in using the “Hop-on Hop-off” method of guided city tours. The one that we chose used the type of bus/trolley that had higher seating, a bit like the intercity buses. This had the advantage of keeping us above the cars and allowed for easier photo taking. As we left the freeway I had a moment of panic as I realised that I had never taken the truck into a multi-storey parking lot before; I have enough trouble getting it between the lines in the shopping mall. Anyway we found a parking lot (the wrong one as it turned out) and it was fairly empty and easy enough to manoeuvre in. The reason it was the “wrong” lot was due to the fact that the tour company had a deal with another lot for all day parking at $4. We paid a little more than that.

The tour was about 21 miles around Boston and Cambridge, with 25 stops. One of the stops we got off at was the old naval yard where the USS Constitution is moored. At the moment they are busy getting her ready to go back to sea for the first time in 37 years. Evidently she is the oldest naval vessel still afloat anywhere in the world. Any one want to challenge that? HMS Victory maybe, or is she dry docked now?

USS Constitution

After lunch at the shipyard we got back on the bus and eventually completed the tour. A part of the ticket you get a choice of a bonus “free” trip. We elected to take a boat tour on the Charles River. Well worth it, particularly if you remember how we felt about a similar boat trip in Savannah last year. The river went past both MIT and Harvard and was full of  sail boats and rowing boats as the students started practicing for various regattas, felt sorry for the captain trying to avoid all the traffic.

Unfortunately, the boat tour ended very close to The Cheesecake Factory so we just had to go in and try some…. Delicious! We were so full we couldn’t manage dinner when we got back home.

Woke up to the sound of rain falling through the trees and onto the trailer roof. At least the temperature continues to climb. Our decision to postpone Boston by a day was a good one.

Sat around the trailer all morning, and the rain eased off towards lunchtime. Picked up some mail from the office, Lyn had ordered some quilting stuff, unfortunately we knew ahead of time that it was the wrong stuff as we got a phone call from the company saying that they had put the wrong order in the envelope addressed to Lyn, and that her order had been sent to someone in Virginia!! Anyway, it all got sorted and Lyn’s stuff is on it’s way here.

The othe delivery was some radio connectors for me. I left a specific one behind, Radio Shack had one for $4.99…. Ebay had 5 for $3.99 including shipping!!

Lyn is on the JoAnn fabrics mailing list, and received a whole bunc og 40 and 50% off coupons valid this week. Guess where we went this afternoon. Couldn’t let the copons go to waste!!!

On the way back from the store we dropped in at a donut store, while were sitting there munching away a guy walks in and orders a small coffee with 5creams and three sugars…. why bother with the coffee?

The weather is slowly getting warmer although we did have to fill up the propane tank today!

This morning was laundry time for Lyn (lucky girl!), and I finally plucked up the courage to take the helicopter for a flight (for those that don’t know this is a radio control model helicopter!). So far it has only been flown at home and has become well acquainted with the fence, the house, the deck and pretty much any other immovable object it can find. At the campsite there are a couple of large grass fields, this was an ideal area for me to practice in as there was only one tree in the whole field. The helicopter flew fine, and without the obstructions of the backyard I was able to fly it and experiment with out fear of crashing. Well almost with out fear, I did manage to chop a few leaves off the tree at about the 50ft mark, otherwise all went well. My faith has been restored, if I can get enough practice in here, I should have a better feel for the beast in a confined area.

After lunch we headed about 10 miles north to the town of Ware so Lyn could get her hair cut. It gave me time to wander around Lowes, but these days what with having a Lowes in Ottawa and parity + with the $ there are no bargains to be had 🙁

We had planned a trip to Boston tomorrow, but the latest forecast doesn’t look too promising… maybe Wednesday

Another cool day, but clear skies.

There is at least one untamed annoyance in the trailer and that is caused by the power converter. All the lighting in the trailer, plus the furnace fan and water pump run on 12v so that they can be used when camping in the middle of nowhere. The power converter takes the 110v from the site plug in (if available) and changes it to 12v for the lights etc, as well as charging the battery. In the process of this conversion heat is generated and there are two cooling fans to help dissipate it. Some bright spark of an engineer decided it would be a good idea to control the speed of the fan relative to the heat produced. Good idea in theory, but when the heat produced is right on the threshold of requiring the cooling of the fans, they pulse on and off about once a second . Very annoying. Time to get the meter and soldering iron out, methinks!!

Today’s trip was a  country drive to the Winsor Dam.

Yet again beautiful scenery on the drive, all the houses along the route appeared to be late 19th or early 20th century, and almost without exception were well maintained with well kept property.

The dam was completed in 1940 to provide a water supply for Boston and other parts of the state. The dam itself appears to be of earth and stone, with no sign of poured concrete. Now for the trivial facts I seem to be able to recall from memory, even when I can’t remember the basic information most of the time. The dam is 2640ft long (exactly 1/2 mile), the reservoir created by the dam is the Quabbin resevoir with a capacity of 442 billion gallons. On an average day Boston sucks 330 million gallons out of the reservoir. The deepest point is 157ft with an average depth of 58ft and a coastline of 118miles. Stupid facts committed to memory mode off!

Looking along the reservoir was just like looking along many Scottish lochs.

Quabbin Resevoir, MA

On the way home we just set the GPS to Shortest Route and meandered through the countryside. Shortest Route will often drag you off the beaten track and take you on interesting routings.

Bye Lizzie, have a safe flight.

Cool again this morning, and will be for the next few mornings. I think the hardest thing I did all day was to setup the thermostat so the place will warm up before we get up tomorrow.

Other than a stroll around the campsite we just lounged around all day, busy doing nothing!!!

Well, for only the second time this summer I wore long pants for the whole day. The furnace got its first work out and performed flawlessly. We woke up to an inside temperature of 48F (9C), but with the furnace on the temperature climbed to 65F (18C) by the time we had finished breakfast.

Outside the temperature was a little lower, with clear blue skies.

We decided to go to a local State Park that had some hiking trails. The first park we wanted to try was closed following extensive damage from the tornado. The next park was Wells State Park, about 20 miles east of here. On the way there we passed through a small town called Brimfield, which must have had  close to 200 marquees in various states of  construction. In fact the number of marquees far outweighed the number of houses in the town. It turns out that there was a massive antiues fair in town, unfortunately ( 🙂 ) it finished last week-end!

We found the Park and spent a while following a trail through the forest, yesterdays rain had left it quite wet in places, but not impassable.

On the way back we followed a side road off to Brimfield Dam, this is a small dam built at the end of a holding pool of 9,400,000,000 gallons (funny how I could remember the capacity, but had to ask Lyn the name of the Dam!!) which, I believe, is used to contol the level of a reservoir further downstream. The whole area was very picturesque, but the site of a couple of groups of red trees was a little disturbing…. winter is coming!

Brimfield Dam

I guess the cooler weather has scared some of the locals off, the number of people moving in for the weekend is way down compared to last week.