Newport, Rhode Island

Our route of today in red..
Bonnet Shores

Narrow street in Newport

Cliff Walk

Some of the mansions on our cliff walk

Downtown Newport

Lunch spot Newport

Today we visited Newport, Rhode Island and now we have seen all 50 US states. We looked at each other and commented that 10 years ago we had no plans to even visit the US, let alone reach this amazing milestone. Although we have now been to all the US states, we have made some lovely friends and keep returning to some states repeatedly. We will also get to see a few new Canada provinces this trip - Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and perhaps Manitoba. We have visited Ontario & Quebec previously. So still a few left to see.

This morning it was my turn to drive, and it was so pretty driving through our first hour in Rhode Island. We passed through a small town of Bonnet Shores on the Atlantic Ocean, and the views were wonderful. Before we knew it I was driving over the Newport Bridge (so bumpy Murray had trouble getting a good photo) and arrived in Newport, a city that was founded in 1639, and is located 30 miles south of the capital Providence. I navigated our 32' long and 8' wide RV along the narrow streets until we reached a lovely spot at Fort Adams in the SW corner of Newport and had morning tea overlooking the water.

We then did a local tourist attraction, a Cliff Walk that has the Atlantic Ocean on one side, and meanders past large mansions on the other side. The weather was cold and overcast, but we were very fortunate not to experience any rain until just as we were leaving Newport. After our cliff walk, we parked the RV on yet another narrow street, and walked a block to have lunch at a little cafe on the water. To suit the occasion, we each had home-made clam chowder. Yum. From our lunch spot, we could see a local fish shop that sells clams, lobsters, shrimp and all fish caught in the area. We ended up buying some fresh salmon that I will use to make a salmon mornay with tonight. Next stop was a few shops that sold sweaters and caps - our brother-in-law Bill has a boat in Ballina, and we were searching for a mariners cap for him. This being a busy seaport (not to mention a major pirate center in the 17 & 18 century) we were sure we would find just the thing, but no luck. Sorry Bill!