7/4/2015 Fourth of July Weekend in Newport

Us, Mike, Julie and Dave at The Breaker's 

With family and friends in town we become Newport tourists for the 4th of July weekend.  We start with a morning stroll along Cliff Walk, named one of the "Top 50 Places of a Lifetime" by National Geographic.  The Atlantic surf is crashing on one side and the Gilded Age (late 1800's) summer "cottages" of the wealthy industrialists of the day are on the other. We tour the Breakers, the grandest of these mansions, which was built by the Vanderbilt's in 1893.  It

Breaker's Dining Room

only took two years to build this 70 room Italian Renaissance palazzo with everything being imported from Europe.  Hummm, it has been more than 2 years and we have another one to go before our 8 unit condo building in Westerly RI, will be finished and I assure you, the materials are local. The foundation for our building was finished last December but they are constructing the Club House and finishing up the first building before they begin framing our building. 

Zoe has her heart set on a childhood treat of Dell's frozen lemonade at Second Beach and we  find the Dell's truck in the same place it was 20 years ago. 

Cardines Field

We  have dinner at the Mudville Pub in downtown Newport and watch the Newport Gulls play on Cardines Field.  I love this quaint little stadium where Sachel Paige, the Babe and Yogi Berra played on this, the oldest continuously operating ball field in the country.  We love our baseball!
  
As if it could get any better, we celebrate the 4th of July on Rose Island in Newport Harbor.  We take a quick walk around Fort Adams, which is the largest coastal fortification in the U.S. built in the early 1800's.  It was active through WWII guarding the entrance to Narragansett Bay.  After taking a launch to Rose Island, we 

BBQ and Watching Fireworks at Rose Island Lighthouse

meet up with our Newport/Florida friends Geri and Bill for a fantastic BBQ and tour of the beautifully restored Lighthouse. Fortifications were built on this 18 acre island during the Civil War and in 1794 Fort Hamilton was constructed.  Upon this Fort's bastions,  a Lighthouse was built in 1870 and was operational for 100 years. You can see the stone barracks from Fort Hamilton which were used in WWI and WWII by the Navy to store weapons. Mike and our newly commissioned Ensign were asked to lower the colors at sunset.  This was already a magical experience and then.... there were the most wonderful fireworks over the Fort.

The four of us are struck by how fortunate our lives have been and that we are together in the town where the kids were born and attended The Pennfield School.  From here we moved to Hawaii then to Virginia.  It is deja vu as Jack starts his Naval career here and then moves to Hawaii.

A Family Portrait Was Taken Here 20 Years Ago