Leaving the Walmart that sold no fresh produce or alcohol the next morning, we drove closer to Providence to the Federal Hill neighborhood so that we could explore the city on our efficient e-bikes. When Michael went to pay at the meter, it wouldn't let him enter his license plate, so we didn't have much choice but to leave a note on the dash for the parking attendant about this.
We got the e-bikes and Sheila's trailer ready, then explored a bit of the neighborhood we were in, which turned out to be the "Little Italy" of Providence, with DePasquale Square being the cultural center, with a fountain in the middle of the plaza that looked like it was imported from Rome. We next gazed at Barnaby Castle from across the road: it's an elaborate, 2½-story High Victorian mansion with turrets, iron cresting, an intricate conservatory with arched stained glass windows, and more. The mansion was built for Jerothmul Barnaby a retail businessman. After his death, his widow was killed after drinking a poisoned bottle of whiskey that she had received in the mail. Her physician was convicted of her murder, but committed suicide in prison in 1893 before he could be executed. While this story doesn't directly to the house, it's a shocking tale that is forever connected with it.
Scenes from Downtown Providence
Downtown Providence isn't huge, but it's rather charming with its historic and iconic buildings and art. There's a squiggly clock called Time Wave, created by sculptor Robert Ellison outside the Shepard Company Building. We saw the Rhode Island State House nearby--the state capitol building that's completely white, and immediately recognizable for what it is thanks to its classical dome roof (we were here during the US government shutdown so not much was happening here, although we were surprised that there were still gardeners working the grounds).
Sheila had some time to go for a brief walk along pretty Waterplace Park, which was fairly quiet when we went but has a nice riverwalk, restaurants, and a shopping mall across the road from it. Some notable structures in the vicinity include the Providence Skybridge (a pedestrian skybridge/walkway that connects to the downtown area), and Providence Biltmore (a historic hotel that's more than a century old, that's now part of the Hilton). For more shopping, the downtown area has The Arcade, which was built in 1828 and was the first enclosed shopping mall in the US, with its huge white pillars and Greek Revival architecture. What was missing though--no public restrooms! We're right downtown, how can that be? Well, technically there are restrooms but they were inaccessible--the Turks Head Building was cool for the Turks Head on it (and it's the tallest building in the city, built in 1913), but we needed to have some kind of appointment for security to let us up.
Another historic building further along was the Industrial National Bank Building, which everyone knows as the "Superman Building" because its art deco architecture makes it look like the Daily Planet building from the Superman comics and television series. After chatting to a local, we finally found a cafe with restrooms! Which turned out to be a decent coffee/tea spot--flat latte was okay, and Lisette continued to savor all things fall with an apple pie chai at a cafe called The Landing, that also serves ice cream and sells souvenirs.
Cycling into Memorial Park where families and squirrels were enjoying the nice weather (Sheila noticed both of them), there were a number of sculptures that pays homage to people who gave their lives during wars and conflicts around the world, including the Holocaust Memorial. A unique sculpture here is the Gun Totem, a concrete structure that has over 1,000 handguns embedded into it, which were taken from the "Guns for Good" weapons buyback program in Pittsburgh.
Athenaeums Are Very Cool Libraries
Cycling up the steep and narrow Hopkins Street (thank you e-bikes for making the incline so easy!), at the corner is Governor Stephen Hopkins House, the oldest home in Providence, lived in by one of the men who signed the US Declaration of Independence. It's now a museum that visitors can go into. Around the corner from this is the Providence Athenaeum--there were a bunch of people standing outside the building across from it and it seemed like they were on a tour or something as they stared at the Athenaeum, but we soon realized we were mistaken and they were just waiting for a bus. It's like those instance where someone waves in your direction, and you think they're waving at you so you wave back, but really they're greeting someone behind you and you just want to pretend you knew the whole time to hide your embarrassment, haha. Anyhoo, the Athenaeum is an independent, member-supported subscription library in the College Hill neighborhood that's open to the public (you need to pay for a tour), but only members can check out items from the collection. We didn't go on a tour, but as soon as we entered we were amazed at how awesome the library was. Lisette would definitely be a member if she lived here, it's a bibliophile's dream, with books stacked neatly on shelves from floor to ceiling, in a grand historical building. Lisette also learned that an Athenaeum is a type of private membership library, often with a focus on communal discourse, specialized collections, and cultural events, while a library is a broader term for a collection of books and resources accessible to the community.
We were very close to the Rhode Island School of Design, as evidenced by the students walking around with backpacks, and we could overhear them talking about lectures and classes. Unfortunately the Edna W. Lawrence Nature Lab that's part of the school was closed (there are apparently cool exhibits focused on natural history specimens), but across the road we learned that Providence has the oldest First Baptist Church in the nation, founded in 1638(!), while around the corner from this is Fleur-de-lys Studio, a historic art studio, and an important structure in the development of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the US. The building pretty and very eye-catching--it was constructed in 1885, is part Tudor Revival in its architecture, drawing inspiration from medieval half-timbered English buildings. It's mostly a bright, sunny yellow color, and has a lot of ornamental reliefs, including of seagulls, flowers, faces, and other details.
Another Parking Ticket!
We made it back to the RV to find a bunch of construction workers surrounding our vehicle to do work on the building next to us... and a parking ticket on our windscreen, argh! Would it have made a difference if our note was on a bigger piece of paper, in bright red ink, and on the driver's side? Who knows, but they're definitely sticklers on the East Coast!
Fortunately we didn't have much more to explore in Providence, driving to the almost medieval-looking Cranston Street Armory, which was built in 1907 and was occupied by the Rhode Island National Guard until 1996. It's been mostly vacant since then, although there are talks for the film and entertainment industry to use it more regularly (it's in the upcoming M. Night Shyamalan movie "Remain", which will be released next year).
Before we left Providence, we swung by Nori the Dragon, a green dragon hanging over the roof of the Children's Museum, which moved here from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts' exhibit on Chinese paintings. Another animal perched on top of a building is the Big Blue Bug, the giant termite mascot of Big Blue Bug Solutions, which is best seen from the I-95 Highway as you drive along so you're facing it (we parked on the other side and got a less flattering pic of its butt). A man noticed us as we got out to walk towards the bug, and mentioned that the bug is kind of famous, as it was featured in the 1994 movie Dumb and Dumber with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels.
Whenever we arrive in a new state we look up the state foods or ones associated with the state. Rhode Island is known for its seafood, which we were eager to try compared to some of the items we've skipped along the way (no offense, Idaho and your finger steaks!). The state appetizer of Rhode Island is calamari, and it's also known for clam cakes and stuffed clams (called "stuffies"). So we headed to Blount Clam Shack & Market in the town of Warren, south of Providence, for a late lunch. We decided to order some calamari, a stuffie, and a fish sandwich, which came with a couple of clam cakes, so we got to really dig into the state's specialties! Once we opened it up we realized how much food there was, and we'd need to split it between lunch and dinner! What's different about Rhode Island fried calamari is that it is tossed with garlic, butter, and hot peppers after frying. Sometimes we'd grab what looked like a fried calamari ring and it turned out to be a battered hot pepper. The calamari was delicious, but a lot for even us to share between us as an appetizer! We enjoyed the stuffie--a Rhode Island stuffed Quahog clam--which was a mixture of minced clam meat, breadcrumbs, and seasonings. We also now know why Peter Griffin and his family from the TV series "Family Guy," which is set in Rhode Island, live in the fictional town of Quahog (hey, clams!).
Probably the least popular item we had was the clam cakes (maybe because it was deep fried too, and there was just too many fried items in our order). We had the fish sandwich for dinner and even if it was cold by then, we could tell it was delicious!
Newport, You Fancy
After stopping in the quaint town of Warren, we continued south to visit the Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge, which has 242 acres for people to walk around the hiking trails and see migratory birds. Since the US government shutdown was still happening the visitor center was closed, but it clearly didn't stop people from visiting--the parking lot, albeit small, was packed! We had to be sneaky and park off to the side, so we could quickly hop out and jog down one of the trails leading to the coast, where we could see the rugged landscape in front of us, with the wind gusts providing ideal conditions for the slew of windsurfers out on the water. We saw a few birds in the distance, and were lucky to also see a male ring-necked pheasant walking around, with its bottle green head, long brown-streaked black tail, and fiery red-brown plumage. It's native to Asia, but was introduced as a game bird in the US.
From the Wildlife Refuge we continued to Newport, a city set on Aquidneck Island , which hosted the America’s Cup for many years. It's also known for the Gilded Age mansions lining Bellevue Avenue, some of which are now museums. As we drove through, we could clearly see that to live here, you'd need a lot of moolah! The homes--nay, mansions, nay estates--that we could see (if they weren't completely shrouded by tall hedges or had long winding road with the houses set back) were enormous, and were reminiscent of what you'd imagine the Mr. Darcy's Pemberley estate to look like from Pride & Prejudice.
We found parking right on the coast, where we saw scuba divers about to get into the cold water (they had booties, hoods and thick wetsuits on--it must have been rather chilly in there) for a late afternoon dive. With about an hours left until sunset, we got on our e-bikes to tour the area and peep at more estates along the way. A few highlights included Carey Mansion (a private residence that was the setting for the soap opera "Dark Shadows,"), Rosecliff (a a Gilded Age mansion of Newport that's now a historic house museum--it was also the setting for the 1974 movie version of "The Great Gatsby" and the infamous ballroom scene in the movie "True Lies"), the Marble House (a Gilded Age mansion built 1888 to 1892 as a summer cottage for Alva and William Kissam Vanderbilt), and Belcourt Castle (another mansion from the Gilded Age era that's now a museum). One of the most famous mansions in the area is The Breakers, now a National Historic Landmark and museum that's open to the public: it was built between 1893 and 1895 as a summer residence for Cornelius Vanderbilt II, another member of the wealthy Vanderbilt family.
As we were cycling around we ended up chatting to a security guard standing outside one of the mansions. He didn't disclose whose home he was watching over (only saying that there were threats that had been made to him, since he's so wealthy), but he did share that there were many well-known, rich people who owned homes nearby, including Larry Ellison, the founder of tech company Oracle who owns the historic Beechwood Mansion (he's also bought 4 additional properties to consolidate into one estate). Jay Leno and Taylor Swift also own homes here.
We got back to our RV, only pausing to see several deer roaming around the neighborhood, and arriving to see the scuba divers finishing up their evening dive and heading home just as the sun was setting--a gorgeous sight over the ocean. We had a couple of campers join us for the night, where we had a quiet and peaceful evening, hearing the lapping sound of the waves as we fell asleep.