It's Andy Fish!

We got up on the Fourth with no plans at all. The weather was perfect– warm but not hot– our heavily wooded backyard was completely shaded as I sipped my coffee on the deck.

“We should do something to appreciate this great weather!” Veronica chimed in. “We should go somewhere!”

I agreed, I was thinking of going to Market Basket to pick up some half and half and some donuts for the following mornings coffee.

“I’d like to go to an ocean!” She said excitedly.

That was a little more than I was thinking– I was thinking of a 40 minute trip in total. She was thinking of at least four hours round trip. The nearest Ocean to us is Quincy MA– it’s about an hour away– but then you’re in Quincy– which is not a bad place, but it’s not a great place either.

Looking at the map– the Cape was the obvious choice, but heading to the Cape on the Fourth of July struck me as an invitation to sit in some crazy traffic getting across the bridges.

Newport Rhode Island is one of our favorite places, and it’s on the Ocean so that’s where we set our sights– and the ride down, avoiding Providence completely, was smooth and uneventful. Then we hit the town itself and we spent nearly as long as the ride down trying to find parking.

We eventually abandoned parking in the main area and took in one of the mansions– this one was one of the more humble of the ones I’ve seen in the past. The woman who greeted you as you walked in was very nice, the woman at the check in desk was not. After a convoluted explanation of how to buy tickets I just jumped on my phone and got two of them.

The mansion itself was nice and cool, it’d already gotten a bit warm outside so it was nice to be inside for a break. The convertible is actually comfortable on anything but the hottest weather– but sitting in traffic with no roof causes you to do a little baking in the leather seats.

After the mansion, we walked down to the Carey Mansion which was the exterior setting for Collinwood in the original DARK SHADOWS TV Series. Veronica and I watch an episode of the show every night before bed– we love the campy silliness of the show.

From there we did a bit of the cliff walk and then gave another shot to finding parking in the center of town so we could hit Mother’s Pizzaria which is a favorite of ours. No luck again so we headed to nearby Jamestown where we ate at JB’s ON THE WATER and it was exceptional.

We got back home in time to see some fireworks in the distance.

Nice fourth of July.