Here on Wren Drive, Kelly and I started the day discussing our VBS details. Their church’s is the end of July. They have a lot of really neat activities and crafts planned; their lessons are basically the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. We did some laundry and made hamburger sliders for lunch, then made strawberry shortcake and mixed up scones for the freezer. She’s taking a ‘nap’ and Chase was watching YouTube videos. He just went upstairs and back to his XBox. I took advantage earlier of Kelly being here, and we put up the 4th of July red/white/blue decorations. All done!
Back to Newport! We packed up everything and said goodbye to the Lafayette Air B&B – then headed straight into Newport. We stopped first at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, where JFK married Jackie. It’s a beautiful church. Jackie was from Newport.
From there we went over to the beginning of the Cliff Walk near Easton’s Beach. We spent about an hour on the Walk, soaking in some sun and watching the waves crash against the rocks. We went as far as we could on the first section; back in February part of it slid down the cliffs into the ocean so it’s blocked off. But it was a beautiful walk. We stopped at Forty Steps – which was where the ‘common’ people and servants in Newport accessed the beaches. Kathy walked down but I stayed on the trail, taking photos.
When we got back to the street and headed back to the car, we decided to stick our feet in the water at Easton’s Beach. The water felt cold at first but we got used to it quickly. There was a red-colored seaweed that was washing up on the shore, and the waves were making wavy lines in the sand. We both found an oyster shell to bring home as a souvenir.
We had a history tour (Golden to Gilded) scheduled at 11:00am so we headed into town and found a parking space. The tour guide had a lot of information, but was fairly unorganized and seldom hit the actual topic. We still enjoyed learning bits of history and seeing older buildings. We did glean an interesting and exciting bit of fact: Rough Point (a mansion NOT owned by the Preservation Society) was actually open that day for tours! THAT was exciting.
Aliens???
We thanked our tour guide and made a b-line for the car, and drove down Bellevue (of COURSE it was on Bellevue!) to Rough Point. It was really the most imposing mansion we visited. Rough Point was owned by Doris Duke, who was once termed America’s richest girl! Her parents owned Duke Energy and she was worth millions. She was a philanthropist and spent most of her fortune restoring historic Newport buildings, contributing to very worthy causes, and supporting needy organizations. The house is basically like she left it in the late 1990’s. Kathy was SO thrilled to tour Rough Point (it was on her ‘favorite’ list) and it ended our stay in Newport perfectly.
a COUCH???
We said a sad but contented goodbye to Newport and headed back to Budd Lake New Jersey, where we had reserved a room in the same hotel we stayed in on Sunday night. We will not soon forget our vacation in Newport, June of 2022. It was very fun despite the ‘bump’ in the road on Sunday, and I would go back in a heartbeat. Tomorrow we’ll take it on home!
June 29 – Did you ever have or make a swing? “Dad & Uncle Edd made us a very nice wooden swing. It was on a steel pipe between two apple trees. It had room for 2 kids. It had a foot rest. We could really make it ‘fly.’ We also had our grapevine swings.” We cousins liked to swing on grapevines, too!
Calendar inspiration is to keep exploring and discover something wonderful! We discovered Rough Point!
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TOMORROW June 30 is:
- National Meteor Watch Day
- Social Media Day
- National Bomb Pop Day – Last Thursday in June
- National Handshake Day
Tomorrow I’m scheduled to be on call as a tour guide at Hanna’s Town from 10:30am to 1:30pm. Then work. Kelly is leaving today after supper so the house will be quiet and lonely. I’ll miss her and Chase! God bless…
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