Cliff Walk, Newport, Rhode Island

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we started off lazy in the morning. After a breakfast of Fluffy Pumpkin Pancakes,

Mike went back to bed while I performed my most important task of the day...updating the states on the side of the RV. I'd already added the great State of Maine while we were in Bar Harbor...

Yesterday morning, I added Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Both states are tiny on our map, but I needed tweezers for Rhode Island.

My friend Debbie who blogs at Woolen Sails has been our virtual tour guide in Rhode Island. Thank you, Debbie. She put us onto this nice state park, and she suggested the Cliff Walk in Newport for yesterday's activities. She hasn't steered us wrong yet, and so we took off to find the Cliff Walk once we got ourselves up and running. On the way out, we stopped to take a picture of the Permit Office at the park. When we registered, this was the first place we've had to show proof of rabies vaccinations on the kitties. Glad we had them along. Canada requires it, but no one has ever asked, despite multiple border crossings.

These pictures are a follow-up to my post of yesterday when I mentioned the park's place in the history of World War II. These buildings were made to look like a farm both by land and by air in order to hide their true strategic function as a command post. The concrete silo was an observation silo used to assist in directing fire, if necessary.

From there, we headed for historic Jamestown, Rhode Island. The road took us across a tall bridge.

This might be called the day of far-off lighthouse viewing because we saw a lot of lighthouses in yesterday's journey. This one could be seen from the bridge.

There were a lot of boats in the bay.

Once across that bridge, we crossed another toll bridge into Newport, Rhode Island. The toll to cross the bridge was $4.

To be fair, it was an impressive bridge.

There were cruise ships in the bay, and see that island in the foreground? Look to the right-most point.

There's another lighthouse.

And shortly, we were in Newport, Rhode Island. Established in 1639. Impressive.

As we approached, we could see some parking, and I've indicated the sign where the Cliff Walk begins there with a red arrow.

After parking, we stepped out onto the beach. Look to the left, and you see this.

Look to the right, and this is what you see. And that was the direction we were heading.

It wasn't far.

We only had an hour on the parking meter, plus the 11 minutes the previous parker had left for us, and so we only walked out to the Forty Steps. In and out, it was a distance of about 1 3/4 miles.

Please follow me, but a word of warning about the dangers you face. Don't be this guy:

Also, watch your step, please.

From the trail, we could look far across the bay and see this humble abode...or maybe it's a restaurant...or an inn...who knows? The homes along the walk were at least this spectacular.

To the right of that, was another lighthouse.

We saw every blooming thing along the way. These roses, for instance, with huge rose hips.

The rose hips were about the size of cherry tomatoes.

Remember when we visited the Wild Gardens of Acadia? I saw a sign there that talked about these, but these are much better than anything we saw in Acadia. Here's the information from the signs in Acadia:

Here's a pink one we saw on the Cliff Walk. When Sue and I walk the Fanno Creek Trail back home, we see these too, but the hips are never as large as those we've seen on the East Coast.

They were very fragrant. Also, more blooming things...

Is this honeysuckle in the next image? I pulled one of the stamens and tasted it...nothing sweet, like when I was a kid. After putting it in my mouth, I started wondering if I'd just poisoned myself. Apparently not.

As we walked along, I heard a scuffling in the grass. When I turned, I found the bank alive with these LBJ (little brown job) birds. There were many more, but quite a few flew off when I pointed the camera at them. They're hard to see, so I've indicated them with red arrows.

Just a little farther along, we started seeing the 40 steps structure.

Getting closer, we could see there were people fishing from the rocks there.

And I think we were maybe just a day behind Debbie because I believe she posted this picture to her blog just a day or two earlier. If you look at the top step, you can see that it says "Forty Steps." The remaining steps have names of people carved into the concrete.

We had just about 20 minutes left on our meter, and so we headed back from there. First, however, we sat on this bench. There were lots of benches and markers commemorating different people. I especially liked this one for Stella and Dokhi, "Two Wonderful Friends." Thank you, ladies. Don't mind if we do.

We were getting hungry and so we headed back to the campground for lunch. Along the way, we drove through the narrow and historic streets of Newport. I loved this sign seen on a restaurant.

As I said, the streets were narrow, and it was hard to find any place to park, or we might have gotten out and walked around a little bit.

Then, we spied this restaurant. It had a parking lot. We still had to drive around the block (or several blocks) to get into the lot, but we got 'er done.

It was the White Horse Tavern, established in 1673. We're told this is the oldest bar in New England. Of course, we've been told that same thing at about ten other establishments.

Also, George Washington really got around. He's been known to drink, eat, and sleep at pretty much every place around. He must have been a party animal, that's all I can say. And I don't know about all the rest of that, but it was nice enough to sit outside, and downright pleasant as we sat there waiting for our food.

Mike had the "Lobster Mac and Cheese." I was mightily tempted by this too.

I only first heard of Banh Mi (apparently the correct spelling, despite what the menu says) for the first time this year. Now, it seems every time I look at anything food related, it says something about Banh Mi. I decided it was time to put my mouth where the words were...or something like that.

And that was super good. We looked it up on Google. Banh Mi is a Vietnamese dish, and the literal translation has to do with the bread on which it is served. I really don't care about any of that. I just thought it tasted good, and so I ate the whole thing.

Lest you think we've totally given up on our diets, we have not. We're just not spending a lot of time worrying about it while we're traveling. We are still weighing ourselves every day and keeping a close monitor on things. Our goal is to maintain our weight while we're traveling. If we lose more, that'll be a bonus. We'll pick up with our weight loss goals when we get back home. So far, so good.

From there, we headed back across the toll bridge, where they nicked us for another $4.

There was a little island just off to the right, where there was another lighthouse.

And that was our day. It was a very good day.

Today we're going to do a little bike riding. Debbie has told us about a place where we can get clam cakes just about a 9-minute bike ride away. We're heading off to New York City in a couple of days, and Mike wants me to do a little bike riding to get my pedal pusher legs under me. We may decide to rent some bikes to make our way around New York City, and it would be good to do a little riding ahead of time.