A week of peace and quiet

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Geo: 41.5918, -70.9411

Annie and Tim were with us Friday evening to Sunday evening and then we were left to ourselves in this house in the middle of nowhere, I tell you - seeing a car drive by on the road at the bottom of the drive is an event!
Despite the less-than-wonderful weather (it has poured with rain a lot of the time) we got out and about for walks on the beach, Liz even managing a swim in the sea one sunny day - though reporting it to be at least as cold as the Lido - we went to New Bedford to see the Whaling Museum, on a walk on the local trail through the woods we found a notice telling us the annual event to tag Monarch butterfles was taking place the same afternoon. It was raining at the appointed time but we turned up anyway, to find only one other couple attending. So we were trained in sticking tiny little stickers onto their rear right hand side wing before launching them gently into the air and wishing them Bon Voage on their migration flight to Mexico - sadly the same ones never make it back this far north as they head for the nearest patch of milkweed (in Texas) to breed the next generation.
On a sunny and windy day we drove round to super-fashionable Newport, Rhode Island where the Vanderbilts and their equally super-rich pals built mansions on the cliffs in which to pass the summer. The town has constructed a Cliff Walk which winds its way 3 miles or so on a path on the cliff edge so you can see into the back gardens - at least the ones that haven't constructed walls, fences and hedges to stop one doing just that. Many of them are now run by a Preservation Society so we went into 'Breakers' the Vanderbilt house and probably the grandest of them all. 20 bathrooms, every bath equipped with 4 taps - hot and cold ordinary and salt water! Newport is now the home of the organisation of the America's Cup yacht races so you can imagine the harbour boasted some pretty fancy sailing machines.
So we have wandered lazily round the area (by car) taking us to woodland walks and beach walks and old General Stores and little museums and Barn breakfast restaurant (a restaurant that only opens for breakfast?) and we have been spooked out being on our own in the house where the only sound is the fridge running, though they did put wifi in just before we arrived so we have internet and therefore Radio 4 (at odd times of course - the World at One at 8 in the morning) and we listened to the first presidential debate on the radio too. Friday we head off to the Adirondacks in northern New York State for what promises to be a chilly weekend of climbing hills!

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Photos

A chicken
State of Rhode Island - home of the Rhode Island Red, the only chicken with a memorial?