17th – 19th Sept: Days 162-164
Rhode Island was a short trip to the west of Cape Cod and we arrived at our campsite, about 2 miles from the swanky coastal town of Newport, at lunchtime on Sunday. It was the last afternoon of the Newport Boat Show weekend so we parked up, had a quick sandwich, leapt on the bikes and headed for the waterfront.
The next 3 hours was a delightful theatrical production of pretending we were in the market for a 38ft motor yacht. So many shiny beautiful toys. So much speaking of half truths. So many business cards collected to be thrown away at a later date. Entirely worth the $20 entry fee. We mentally spent about $500K over and over again which was a very pleasant way to spend a sunny afternoon. There were some utterly bonkers boats there. For example: the 53′ centre console sport fishing boat with four 627hp 6.2L V8 engines, each worth $100,000 fitted. Those folks obviously need to get fishing fast and very fancy.
The next day we cycled along Bellevue Avenue, the road along which the fabulously wealthy industrialists of the late 19thC, like Cornelius Vanderbilt, built their summer ‘cottages’. (Paff. Ostentatious mansions). Several are now museums and you can pay to go and marvel at the complete and overwhelming excess of the ‘Gilded Age’.
Loads of the houses on the street are still privately owned, demonstrating that there is still a lot of money in this neck of the woods. Also on Bellevue Avenue was a small private car museum called Audrain with a few choice specimens. Cool to see a Bugatti Veron in the flesh, but the star of the show was this quite gorgeous Ferrari Europa. A cool 6 million bucks worth.
Back in town, most of the boat show vessels had been taken away and the harbour looked pretty empty and forlorn. We did find his little collection of ships berthed at a private apartment complex. Probably not used much as they were all blocking each other in.
We managed to fritter away enough time to get to an acceptable drink o’clock and found an open air waterfront bar for a G&T and a natter with a young Texan couple. They were in town as they had tickets to take some pieces to The Antiques Roadshow USA the next day, which was a trifle obscure. We got a few top-tips for our visit to Texas next year and then set off to find a restaurant for dinner. After a few false starts we ended up at a BBQ joint and indulged some delicious ribs and various other very tasty parts of previous animals. No chance of a conversion to vegetarianism in the Hampson household, I am afraid. We cruised home in the dark, thanking Newport for their nice wide cycle lanes.
We were meant to be here 3 nights, but Hurricane José was forecast to be coming this way, and coastal Rhode Island potentially could get quite a pummelling with high winds. We hemmed and hawed, but decided to play it safe and headed off a day early to our next stop in Conneticut. A lost night’s accommodation seemed a small price to pay for peace of mind. The rain had started by the time it came to pack up. We got wet, changed in the car and headed off.