Because they took care of our cat while we were in Newport, I returned the favor and watched our neighbors two cats while they were in California. Upon return she brought us a thank you gift of regional beer.
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But not just any beer.
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Beer with a sense of humor.
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Ah, spring in Maine. It can go from 70 degrees to snow in 24 hours.
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And when the grass starts to green…
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The deer start blowing winter coats.
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They look like scruffy ragamuffins..
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And we find clumps of hair all over the lawn.
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We definitely did not.
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Unfortunate typo aside, I’m going to try this and report back.
Finished with the family’s personal space, we moved down the back staircase …
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To the beehive of the house…
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Past the upper level of the butler’s pantry.
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Which had some rather lovely wrought iron rails of its own.
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Down to the kitchen.
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The main kitchen had a coal fired stove and the heat was stifling. So much so, there was a completely separate “cold” kitchen with an enormous zinc topped prep table. (stainless steel wasn’t invented until 1912, the oxidized surface of zinc was naturally antibacterial)
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Naturally there was a separate service entry for deliveries and staff which was cleverly hidden from the family by a massive wisteria vine.
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Mind you the family was only here for 6 weeks in the summer so it would have been in full bloom and pretty then, not the dormant skeleton we saw.
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Exiting to the rear of the house, we strolled the grounds.
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Which retain only a fraction of their original size.
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And on the back lawn?
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The ever present Canada geese.
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My husband was impressed with the nicely trimmed shrubbery.
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As well as the art.
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These really are grand old buildings…
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And well preserved portals to the past.
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What?
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You don’t have a life size bronze sculpture of a tiger killing a crocodile on your lawn?
Continuing our tour of the Elms, we learned some interesting history of the home before entering the breakfast room.
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When the sister of the original owner passed in 1961, she left the estate to her nephew. Not having the money for its upkeep… he auctioned off all the furniture and sold the property to a developer. Three days before the entire house was due to be demolished, the Preservation Society stepped in, raised funds for purchase and opened it to the public in 1962. Over the decades the Society has bought back a lot of the original furnishings you see here.
But back to the breakfast room. It’s walls are 18th century K’ang Hsi lacquer.
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Superb examples of the art form, this is one of only a few surviving lacquer rooms in the world.
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Next door is the butler’s pantry… where food would be plated before serving.
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The electric dumb waiter connects to the kitchen below and to the upper level of the pantry where the china was stored.
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The silver safe.
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View of the dining room from the pantry.
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Heading up the stairs to the second floor.
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In the center hall sits a large and extreme heavy ( two and a half tons! ) marble table.
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It was sold at the auction of furniture in ‘61… but proved too massive to move and was set to be demolished along with the house.
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The family’s private rooms are on this floor.
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Bedrooms.
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And baths.
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Please note the wicker “throne” in the masters bath below.
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Fit for a king of industry?
The sink is white onyx..
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So, perhaps.
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🤣
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These light fixtures made me smile.
Not sure why.
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Along with the bedrooms, we found the family’s personal sitting room.
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Downstairs was for guests.
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This was a private space, and filled with donated family photos.
A few more amusing regional maps for your consideration.
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Lewiston, Maine is an old mill town gone to seed. It tries to put on a pretty face with downtown rejuvenation projects but to my mind will always be a poor, sad relative to its coastal cousins.
If I lived there? I’d be drunk as well.
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This is a map no one really needs to see, but Italy?
What the utter hell!
😳
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Proud to have the most trees, that’s me!
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Most excellent.
I love cows.
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Though it seems a little strange Wisconsin was singled out for cow ratio when it turns out they didn’t make the top bovine tier.
Since it was still raining on our fourth afternoon in Newport, we opted for more indoor entertainment.
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And who doesn’t love an aquarium?
Yes, this one was small and heavily geared to children with various petting pools… but there were fish.
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And I love watching fish.
Almost as much as this turtle loved watching me.
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Watching fish lowers my blood pressure.
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And watching this small ray float back and forth made me smile.
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Especially when he surfaced for a few close ups.
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See?
He’s smiling too.
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A few days before we visited, I saw a printed advertisement for this aquarium in a local magazine. It showed a surround tunnel and I love walking through those!
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Of course the ad…. ⬆️
Turned out to be a bit different than the reality… ⬇️ .
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Yup.
That’s the tunnel.
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And yours truly is a little too large to have made that enjoyable.
😒
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But back to the fish.
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I fell in love with these little weirdos.
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And yes, I think we had a moment here.
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They were fascinating fellows to watch.
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All with slightly different markings.
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I turned to see what my husband thought of them but as usual… I’d lost him.
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You know he had to find someone to talk to besides me.
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So while he made friends with the marine biology student attendant…
I made friends with a shark.
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Who, it turns out, isn’t supposed to pop up vertically and greet guests… but I must be irresistible because he did it on multiple occasions.
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Kevin on the other hand, is a very friendly dude.
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And enjoys the occasional back rub.
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The lovely and quite special thing about this aquarium is that all the marine life comes locally from Narragansett Bay. Many… like Kevin who is blind in one eye… are disabled in some way and will have a permanently safe home here.
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The other creatures do a six month rotation for exhibition and are then released back to the wild.
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Once in a while invasive tropical fish are found …
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And are not released back in the bay to upset the natural order.
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Is that guy on the bottom waving?
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Tilt the picture slightly and I see an owl with a sharp beak.
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This poor fellow lost an eye.
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There’s the husband, still chatting.
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Fish.
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Fish.
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And more fish.
And though my spouse was still talking, closing time was 5:30 so we were politely scooted out the door.
Dinner was a local Chinese restaurant with very fresh and tasty food.
I’ve never been a big fan of Pierce Brosnan but his steely portrayal of an Irish gangster in this new (raw and violent but extremely watchable) series may change my mind. The fact that it also stars Helen Mirren and Tom Hardy doesn’t hurt.
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I was hesitant to start this quirky Irish comedy/drama but was hooked from episode one. Equal parts tragedy and heartwarming comedy, it’s family at its best.. and absolute worst. The stunning scenery of coastal Ireland alone is worth a look.
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There’s been a lot of buzz around this fast paced medical drama so I thought I’d give it a whirl. At first glance it seemed formulaic. Set in an overworked, understaffed emergency room in Pittsburgh, it had the usual stressed out doctors and nurses with personal problems and an over abundance of medical terminology. Each episode represents one tragic hour of a single day and though I didn’t see anything ground breaking or unfamiliar with this particular show at first, the heartfelt, poignant and often tragic scenes make for an intensely watchable show. Its portrayal of the gritty horror inner city E.R’s face on a daily basis made me admire the real medical personnel even more than I already do.
Kudos to all the real doctors and nurses who literally hold our lives in their hands.
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I’ve stuck with this bizarre train wreck of a series from the beginning without really knowing why. The story line is crazy, the characters far from from lovable… but like a highway accident, you can’t seem to look away.
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Loving season one, I was all in for another deep dive into the Yellowstone origin story. And while some parts were equally as good, overall I was annoyed at the endless (bring them home already!) storyline and (spoiler alert) very unhappy ending.
So we headed back to the base to check out the Naval War College museum and hopefully find someone familiar with its recent history to talk with my husband about his time there.
On the way, we passed the required geese.
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Rain doesn’t bother them a bit.
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The museum is a fine old building with a unique back story.
From Newport Poor House to Founders Hall
Coasters Harbor Island was the site of Newport’s Asylum for the Poor. Built in 1819, the stone and brick building provided shelter for the town’s homeless. At various times it also served as a quarantine site during epidemics, as a holding area for minor criminals and as a facility for the insane. By the early 1880s, the overflowing facility was taxing Newport’s resources. In 1881 the town relocated the inmates to other institutions and the State Assembly of Rhode Island ceded the island and the building to the federal government.
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As we walked around, we found it had some interesting exhibits.
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But we soon realized we were the only people there…
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Aside from this headless fellow.
No staff, no docents, not a single person for my husband to engage in conversation.
Oh, the horror.
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From the first submarine…
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To a sailor enjoying his projectile a bit too much.
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Past a torpedo boat that just looked… wrong.
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And a WWI listening device that appeared to be George Lucas designed… the place was as quiet as a tomb.
There were marvelous model ships.
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And some history that made me laugh.
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The close ups will explain the laughing.
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Oh, those crazy colonials.
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A civil war drum.
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Some lovely memorabilia.
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With a sailor who knew how to work a parasol.
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We saw a portrait of an admiral who was a dead ringer for Ben Kingsley.
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And propaganda posters…
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As well as a death mask with some ceremonial silver.
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There was even a possible ancestor of the Charmin toilet paper spokesman.
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But not a single historian with whom my husband could chat.
Feeling badly for him, I suggested we take the elevator to the top floor office. We did, but only found a 30 something secretary who hadn’t even been born when my husband was stationed here.
We enjoyed the museum, but I know my guy was disappointed.
And when you’re disappointed?
There’s always beer.
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Newport craft brewery to be exact.
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Which had an excellent tasting space…
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And some very tasty beer.
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I liked the Ungourdly Hour so much I brought some home.
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We were hungry enough for a nibble and discovered they had a satellite station of Wally’s Weiners, a Newport favorite.
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I can’t say I was overly impressed with the corn dog bites or garlic Parmesan fries…
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But the beer was good… and my husband had an hour long conversation with the bartender, telling stories of the old days so I know he was happy.
😊
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Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
River's world..... 