Cape Cod and Rhode Is

Sep 30 – We left the Boston area and drove to Rhode Island but not before checking out Cape Cod. We had heard many things about it and wanted to see for ourselves. The weather wasn’t the best. We had quite a bit of fog: you can see it in the photo of the lighthouse. They have a great museum there with history and info on how the peninsula was formed and all that stuff. We had lunch at a neat little place called the Optimist Café; wonderful food and cute old house to boot.

After that we spent a day in Providence. There are some super old buildings there. There is a street called Benefit Street that has the largest accumulation of colonial homes in America. They were from the 1700s and up; unbelievable. We got a little turned around and got lost. While trying to find our way back I stopped to ask a policeman how to get back to the downtown area. He asked me what the heck we were doing in that neighborhood. I told him we were lost and he said “you’re in the ghetto now and you’d better get out quick”. I asked him if it was dangerous and he said yeah they’d had several shootings lately even in the daytime so we had better leave ASAP. He told us how to get back downtown and we promptly left.

We also spent some time in Newport, across the harbor from Providence. They have a street that is full of the largest and most gorgeous mansions you’ve ever seen. We took a photo of one place that had its own private harbor where they moored their boat and set lobster traps. It wasn’t one of the bigger places but it was right on the coast. Val and Maggie viewed a wonderful topiary garden; I stayed in the car.

After Newport we left and drove further south, down the coast and are now in New Jersey and plan on spending the next few days touring the Big Apple, New York City. Will write more later.