The Misadventures of an English Major
Finally found a name for my escapades! ;) Although this journal will always and forever remain "Winston." My laptop bears the same name. It's a good name! :) (Both are named out of a deep and abiding love for how awesome Winston Churchill was. Favorite British PM? I think so!)
Sadly, Maine did not happen, because we figured that the traffic coming home would be absurd. So, we wisely avoided that situation. We've been trying to avoid doing the same old things though, so we didn't go to Plymouth or Bristol either (we ALWAYS go to Plymouth or Bristol). Instead, we spent the day in Newport! Now, I've been there many, many times in the course of my life, but we all go so infrequently that it feels new each time. We were going to do the Cliff Walk, because you can walk behind all the mansions and ooo and ahhh at the remnants of The Gilded Age, but there was absolutely no place to park! We drove by Rosecliff so I could see it again anyway (they have this HUGE ballroom in the middle that you can see from the street and that you can see the ocean through!), and went to nearby Brenton Point Park. It's this state park near the country club and all of these hubangous private homes. It's not really swimmer friendly, because the shore line is basically these gigantic slate rocks (which make for excellent climbing around and LOTR spoofing) and rough seas. However, there is always room to put a chair, and those rocks are really user friendly. I got right up next to the shallows and got to dip my feet in. The water is still pretty cold, but the sun was warm so it felt good. I even shot some poor quality video with my phone! ;) I'll upload it here if I can figure out how to do it, and show you what I'm talking about.
After we sat in the sun for some time, we headed back to Newport proper and decided to explore Bowen's Wharf. It's really lovely! There are shops upon shops, and many of them are pretty interesting places. My favorite was this place called "Sheldon: FIne Arts." You can bet I took a picture of that shop sign! We also stopped at this painting store, because we needed a new painting to go over the mantle. I found this one in a gold/deep crimson frame of this balcony in Verona with a bunch of roses growing all over the place. ;) Yeahhhh NO Shakespearean shenanigans there! Heh. It looks very nice in our living room. I almost bought this oil copy of The Starry Night, but I have a couple other things that need framing first (two gifts: an oil painting of Jack Skellington a friend gave me for Christmas, and a charcoal drawing of Jack Sparrow another friend gave me for my birthday!). After that, I have to see how much wall space I have available. Our house is nearly a hundred years old (98, to be exact) and my room is on the second floor, so the angles are a bit weird and it's difficult to have one straight stretch of wall that will take a painting on it. I'll figure it out though. I'm also thinking of installing more shelving. The book mountains in my room are becoming quite alarming, thanks to all of my school books! (I keep ALL of my English books, because you never know what might come in useful down the road!)
Other than that? Not much going on here. Just trying to keep my allergies at bay (pollen has been BRUTAL) and surviving all of these days I'm spending at CVS.
Almost forgot: good news! Museum Day is ON for June 11th. Although, I'm not going to believe I'm actually going until I am behind the wheel of my car, Kayla is in the passenger seat, and we are on our way to Bridgewater to catch the train to South Station. ;)