I took a 2 week break from posting. Now to catch up.
First of all, Pixi and I just celebrated our 10 year anniversary of our first date! That date lasted 3 days. We really clicked. Who knew it would last 10 years? And will probably last forever, til death do us part.
We decided to really celebrate. So we had to decide what to do. I had the idea of going to Newport, Rhode Island, and, after talking over other options, eventually Pixi agreed. It was a resort area on the water for the rich and famous back in the end of the 19th century, until WW1. There are dozens of huge over the top opulent mansions, and hundreds of very large houses. It's only an hour and half drive from home, so very easy to get to! It's still a very popular summer resort, but many things to do in winter too.
I'd gone there once over 30 years ago with my ex husband. I believe we toured the Breakers, the largest of the mansions open to the public. Pixi and I researched before we went, and we decided we'd try to go to Rosecliff. It's been used as movie location several times, including the 1974 Great Gatsby.
We also discovered there is a Museum of American Illustration in Newport, housed in another mansion. Being as I went to college for Illustration and Painting, I'm crazy about illustrators. I've always loved that golden era of illustration, from just after the Civil War til the 1950s. Many of my favorite artists had works at this museum, Maxfield Parrish, JC Leyendecker, Charles Dana Gibson, and many others such as Norman Rockwell, etc., etc.
So, we made a hotel reservation in the next town over from Newport, Middletown, for 3 nights. Left home on late Thursday afternoon in the pouring rain. Luckily it cleared up in the night and the entire weekend was beautifully sunny, if cold. But in the 30s, bearable.
Pixi drove. Did a great job in the rain. When we got there, we checked in to our beachside hotel, then drove to a nearby casual seafood restaurant. Chowder, scallops, fish and chips... We shared a bottle of wine. We then stopped at the bar of another place for a beer to soak up more local color. Back at our room, we drank yet more beers, and got tipsy, and silly, and cuddled and watched TV and had sex. So fun and romantic. In the morning, we finally saw the beautiful beach just outside, and took a little walk!
Our Middletown hotel was on an island next to the island Newport is on, but we were only 5 or 10 minutes away from the mansions. The art museum was only open on Fridays in the off season, so we did that first. We also enjoyed good food... we went to an old classic adorable shiny chrome diner for brunch 2 mornings. We planned the whole weekend to pace ourselves however, because we have these bad backs and other aches and pains lol. By and large we did great. I actually fared better than Pixi did!
We absolutely adored the art museum. It was pure heaven for me. We were given these audio tour little iPad/headphone kinda things, where you could get basic info about each room, or click for more in depth descriptions of a few more paintings. We clicked on pretty much everything. The mansion itself was in the style of the Petite Trianon chateau at Versailles in France. I can't even...
After the tour (we lingered 3 or 4 hours) we browsed the gift shop and got a book about Maxfield Parrish written by the husband and wife team who are the owners/curators of the museum. Then we went for a drive along the mansion road, Bellevue Avenue, then up the craggy coast on Ocean Drive, and watched the sunset over the water, and gawked and exclaimed at all the multi-million dollar mansions all along that road, in their dramatic clifftop settings, with their amazing landscaping. Very rocky, cliffy shoreline, glowing in the pink evening light. Gorgeous. Spectacular. Stunning.
Pixi was by then very sore and tired. I saw she needed to rest, so I ran in to a liquor store and grocery store back in town, for stuff to eat for dinner in our hotel room, instead of going out. She felt better after resting, eating bread, cheese, fruit, salad, pistachios, chocolate, beers, and we got all giggly, and had more sex.
The next day, diner brunch at noon, then we drove back to Bellevue Avenue where the biggest mansions are. First we drove to where the gigantic Breakers is... it has 70 rooms. Good lord. Insane. Then, we found out Rosecliff was closed, because of an event there. So we went to Marble House instead. Again got audio tour equipment for a fascinating tour/history/art lesson. Amazing, the wealth and power and lifestyles of these people! Tycoons of industry. Billionaires by modern standards, and didn't pay income tax. It was awesome and a bit sickening actually. But fun too. We again spent about 4 hours in the house. I was taking dozens of pix, which luckily was allowed. I must've taken 100 pix all weekend.
By the way, these gigantic incredibly fancy mansions were all just summer homes to these people, only used for 6-8 weeks in the summer. Marble House was one of 5 homes the owners had at one time, and they'd built or restored 9 over time, plus spent 6 months a year yachting around the world to boot. They had to travel! They had to purchase furniture and accessories and art for their homes! lol So freaking ostentatious.
Anyway.
Then again we drove up the coast, getting a bit of an earlier start, to view coastline mansions again, and get to Breton Point Park on the water, where the previous day, we saw people go to park and view sunset. So we sat there an hour, watched the sun go down over the water, the ocean crashing into the boulders on the shore, and drank a beer, ate a snack, talked about the amazing art museum and the opulent marble mansion. We also looked at phones and planned where to go for dinner.
We went back to the hotel when it was dark, around 5:30, and rested a bit. But we had a glitch with dinner. When we'd first gotten to our hotel, the clerk informed us that the whole area was having a natural gas issue. A week ago, during a deep freeze in the weather, a valve had frozen up over the border at a power plant in Massachusetts, and the whole Newport area lost natural gas. 10,000 homes and businesses had lost their gas, their heat, their stoves. 7000 were still without power! It was the talk of the town. So all the hotels were full of homeless residents, even though it was off season. Many restaurants and businesses were closed, or only partly open for business. The grocery store had been unheated. We saw gas company trucks all over town going door to door to restore power all weekend.
We spent more time looking on Yelp and decided on a "hipster foodie" restaurant that looked cute and fun.
But when we got there, it was closed. The second place we tried, an old historic oyster house, was open and heated and lovely, but only had a limited menu. It was also more expensive than we'd expected. The entrees were all in the high 20s. But they had no entrees anyway. So, we each got a beer and a stingy $7 cup of soup, shared a dozen clams on the half shell (Rhode Islanders use the native name, quahogs), and got an oyster shooter too. Pixi got a pickleback one, I got a Japanese one. That was all expensive enough! Then we drove back closer to our hotel and went to an Italian restaurant right across from the hotel for a pizza lol.
The next day was Sunday, our day to drive home. As we were leaving the hotel, we were only on the road 5 minutes, going alongside a beach. A flock of Canadian geese was grazing right next to the narrow road. The flock decided to take flight right as we got next to it. Silly birds! 2 of them didn't clear our car... I couldn't brake as there were cars behind me. I was only going about 20 mph... One bird hit right in the middle of the windshield, and another hit the frame of the car right next to the windshield. THUMP! All I could see was a feathered belly and scrabbling black webbed feet. What a shock.
I pulled into a side street and Pixi got out and saw our car was OK. The windshield was OK. Whew! What a thump that was. Once we realized we were OK, we couldn't stop laughing and joking about it.
So, on the way home we stopped at a big antique mall in RI. I'd been there once about 2 years ago with a collector friend, Pixi had never been. We wandered around there almost 4 hours. I was amazed at how well we did, touring 2 museums and the mall. So fun. We bought a few cool vintage things. It was great.
Rhode Island is the cutest little state. It has a really different vibe than Mass. All tidy and neighborly. I'm so glad Pixi and I get along so well, share interests in art and food and music and philosophy and sex etc etc. I am so lucky to have her. What a fun mini vacation we had.
