Newport in a Nutshell

Whirlwind weekend in Newport: Mel and Ed picked us up Friday morning; we headed northeast and stopped at Zuppardi's Apizza in West Haven—excellent once again—and then we drove to Aquidneck Island (I learned that Newport is a municipality on Aquidneck Island) and checked in at our hotel, The Bellevue Manor, we got some coffee at Picnic Cafe, met Julie and Rob, walked down to Bowen's Wharf and had some drinks, and then ate at the spacious Stoneacre Garden—food and drinks were a bit pricey but good; the next day, I got up early and caught the sunrise and the early morning surfers at Easton Beach, and then we bought sandwiches at the Picnic Cafe and packed them for our hike and we stuffed into Rob and Julie's car and drove to the Doris Duke mansion at the far end of the Cliff Walk—the mansion was impressive, especially all the Asian artifacts, including the beautiful hand-painted wallpaper—and the view from the expansive lawn over the rocky shore and the stone bridge, which spanned a canyon of daisies and ocean water, was even more impressive than the stone mansion itself (Doris Duke is the same lady who owned Duke Farms in Hillsborough, one of the most beautiful pieces of land in New Jersey, and she is also was involved in a scandal-- which the old ladies did NOT mention on the tour . . . in1966, the billionaire tobacco heiress crushed and killed her longtime interior designer and curator, Eduardo Tirella, with a station wagon outside the gates of her Newport mansion after a furious argument about him leaving her employ to become a Hollywood set designer-- the incident was ruled an accident but very well might have been murder, out of sheer rage at his audacity for leaving) and then Julie and Rob left to see their daughter perform trainer duties at a football game and we did the long and arduous hike back to the hotel, past all the insane mansions (and I took the best pictures of my life inside a tunnel!) and then we unpacked our sandwiches and learned that the picnic Cafe was NOT aptly named-- may sandwich was a total soggy disaster, avacado and bacon on sourdough, but they didn't toast the sourdough and put the whole thing on TOP of some salad with vinagrette dressing-- it tasted fine but was a soggy mess, Julie had the same experience in the car driving to the football game-- once we made it back to the hotel, I took a well-deserved nap, and then we got some coffee and a peanut-butter cookie from Picnic Cafe (much more in their wheelhouse) and headed out for drinks at Bowen's Wharf and dinner at Perro Salado, excellent Mexican food and drink, and not too expensive, highly recommended—and then Catherine found the Springfield Inn of Newport, a sticky-floored dive bar with a cover band, full of youngsters (except for the cover band itself, which was comprised of people our age—fifties to sixties, the guitarist looked like Will Ferrell in Eastbound and Down and wore a t-shirt that said "I Bleached My Asshole For This" within a Clorox logo) and the cover band played mainly 90s pop-punk songs: Blink 182, Green Day, "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus, etcetera . . . and the kids—mainly young scantily clad girls—knew ALL the words—very surreal . . . because we also knew all the words as well; the next morning, we got up and went to Fort Adams, a beautiful spot on the bay, and then we got in the car to haul it home—and what a haul it was, 7.5 hours . . . so though it was lovely, I'm not going to Newport again any time soon (although we are attending a wedding there next September, we have learned out lesson and will drive back to Jersey at 5 AM).