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Published: August 20th 2006
Melville Ponds
This was our home base for exploring Rhode Island.We left Philadelphia and headed north toward Rhode Island. You may think we are crazy but we decided to bypass New York City for this trip and save it for another time. Living on the East Coast will make NYC an easy long weekend trip for the future and we want to give the city the full attention that it deserves.
So on we drove through southern Connecticut, where we saw a little town on the map called Mystic. I thought this sounded familiar but was not sure why. We decided to drive through and see if this might be a nice spot for lunch. Turns out it was a great spot for lunch and a fantastic place to visit for an afternoon. Remember the film Mystic Pizza from the late 80’s… about 3 sisters who lived in a small town called Mystic and worked at the pizza place there? Well the story was fictional but the place is real, and it was all based around the Mystic Pizza restaurant in Mystic, Connecticut. The restaurant has been there since the 70’s, long before Hollywood came to town, but the film has since put Mystic on the map and turned Mystic
Fire fire!
It just wouldn't be camping without a raging camp fire! Pizza into the major tourist attraction. We thought we would try it out for lunch to see if the pizza was truly a “slice of heaven” as they claim. The verdict - the pizza was fresh, homemade and tasty; a slice of heaven indeed for two hungry travelers! The rest of the town is adorable too, with unique little shops lining the Main Street which backs on to the Mystic Harbour. So if you are ever passing through, Mystic is worth a stop.
With our tummies full, it was on to our campground in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. We took scenic US-1 along the coast of the Naragansett Bay and it didn’t take us long to realize that that we were going to love Rhode Island. It might be the smallest state in the Union, but it’s got bags of character and judging from the looks of some of the houses, the people here have got bags of money! Rhode Island has over 400 miles of coastline and is made up of over 30 tiny islands. We crossed over one of the larger islands, Conanicut, en route to our campground on the largest island in the Bay, Aquidneck Island. To
get to Aquidneck you have to cross the Pell toll bridge which offers some spectacular views of the bay and the coastline, and is also impressive in it’s own right.
After some online research we had booked 4 nights at the Melville Ponds Campground in Portsmouth, RI. This is about 10 miles north of Newport on Aquidneck Island, RI. We were a little apprehensive as we approached our very first campground and hoped that it would be nice. It turns out that we had nothing to worry about. We checked in at the small office and were given a map of the campground indicating all of the available tent sites. We then got to drive through and choose the site we liked. We found a perfect corner site in the woods near a little stream. There were only a few other tenters in the area so it felt very secluded and private.
Within an hour we had managed to put up the tent, unload the car and get settled in to our campsite. Ok so we were a little slow at getting things set up, but it was our first time after all. I’m sure our time will
Newport Mansion
Parts of the Great Gatsby were filmed here. improve over the many, many nights of camping that we have in store ahead. However I don’t think that we will ever reach the 4 minute minimum set-up time claimed by the manufacturer website. This time is clearly only achievable if you are super- human camping robots, which we clearly are not.
It was getting a little late so we thought we would create our first camping dinner from food we already had in stock. I’m sure most people have had some form of fish from a tin before, but have you had fish from a plastic packet?? Well this seems to be the new thing that is easier and less messy than tins, so we thought we would try some packet salmon fillets as a quick, easy entrée. I guess where we went wrong was in thinking that they would actually taste somewhat similar to a fresh salmon fillet, they looked so appetizing on the front of the packet! But in reality, they tasted of fish-flavoured rubber soaked in teriyaki sauce. Fortunately the instant noodles that we had to go with them were a little better and filled us up. By this point it was getting dark and
our lantern was being raped by mosquitoes so we decided to retire to the tent. We shared a lovely fruit cocktail straight from the tin for dessert and went to sleep at 9pm for lack of anything better to do. Surely tomorrow night we can do a little better than this? Practice makes perfect right?!
We devoted our first full day in Rhode Island to exploring historic Newport, best known for it’s grand and extravagant mansions built as ‘summer cottages’ by the likes of the Vanderbilt’s and the Belmont’s in the mid to late 1800’s. You can glimpse most of the mansions from Bellevue Avenue and you can even pay to tour some of them. The cheaper option is to find somewhere to park, not necessarily easy to do, and then walk along the rocky coastline on the Cliff Walk where you can peer into the back gardens of the mansions and often get better views than you can from the front. Of course we took the cheap option, but also the nicer option I think because you can take your time for photos and see the beautiful coastline as well as the mansions. After a lot of walking,
we got the car and cruised down Ocean Drive, of course with Lighthouse Family blaring from our stereo, where we saw our dream house. I felt a bit like the paparazzi when Chris suddenly pulled off the road and I jumped out to photograph the house through their front gate. Fortunately no Dobermans came charging out and I managed to get a few nice shots. Turns out this was Hammersmith Farm, John and Jackie’s Kennedy’s former summer home and is now a private residence. The wealth here is ridiculous!
Day 2 in Rhode Island was spent in the capital city, Providence. This was a Saturday so the downtown was very quiet, almost eerily so, but it made it easy for us to park and explore. We walked over to the State Capitol Building which was very impressive, a bit like the Capitol in Washington, DC only a little smaller. We then walked over through part of the downtown area and down to Waterplace Park. This is a cluster of apartments, shops and restaurants surrounding a man-made basin of the Providence River. The river winds on from here with beautiful paved walkways along both sides. We were intrigued by the
small platforms of firewood floating along in the river. We later found out that they were part of the WaterFire display and the city sets them alight often on summer evenings, a spectacular sight I’m sure.
We then passed under a small bridge next to the river whose walls were tiled with a colourful display called the Wall of Hope. After 9/11, the city wanted a memorial to those lost in the tragedy so they asked people of all ages from around the city to paint tiles for the wall. Some were in memory of lost loved ones; some said “thank you” to the firefighters who helped to rescue people trapped in the buildings; some cried out for world peace and an end to terrorism; all were beautiful and touching.
Next we walked over to Benefit Street, Providence’s “mile of history”, which is lined with colourful historic homes of past merchants and sea captains. As we walked along taking in the history, we spotted the small and discreet entrance to a museum. There was sign out front advertising free admission on Saturdays, so we took the opportunity for a free browse. We learned once we were inside that
Providence
Some of the colourful houses lining downtown Providence. this was the RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) Museum of Art. We also learned as we made our way through the endless maze of rooms and galleries that this inconspicuous museum had one hell of a collection! Picasso, Van Gogh and Monet, just to name a few, were all featured along with many more. There is also a historic home which joins onto the museum and houses spectacular collections of furniture, glass and silver, including the very cool work of John Pritt (see teapot photo).
For our last day in Rhode Island we decided to do some scenic driving along the coastline. We crossed the Pell bridge again over to Conanicut Island. We drove through Jamestown, a lovely, quaint little town on the coast. It was a gorgeous sunny day and the town beaches were packed. We stayed on the one main road that loops the island and saw some gorgeous houses; not huge mansions like in Newport, but plenty big enough for us! We also found some picturesque detours off the main road, like a sleepy little harbour and our own private beach.
By the end of our stay in Rhode Island, we were really getting
Silver Teapot
The coolest teapot we have ever seen! Designed by John Pritt. the hang of this camping thing and you will be happy to hear that our meals were much improved. We thoroughly enjoyed the peaceful space and fresh air of the great outdoors and felt reassured about our future as happy campers. However, we did not enjoy being eaten by mosquitoes each night despite drenching ourselves in bug spray. Should we have perhaps invested in a screen house?
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Carol van't wout
non-member comment
Birthday Girl
Hi you two I am so envious it all looks so interesting and so enjoyable. Pete went to Rhode Island in the 1970 and baught me a necklace I still have it. This is for Jennifer Happy Birthday and have a lovely day,I have posted a birthday card and travellers cheques that I am sure you can make good use of when you get back home. Lots of Love Mama /Carol xx