A few pics from Newport

Here I am, standing in the back yard (har, har) of the Elms. Yep, that's my new red raincoat; she performed like a champ. Also note the new glasses. I'm still getting used to them but I think I like them.

And here's B and me, same location. B has new glasses, too. He actually got 2 new pairs so you can expect to see lots of variety from him in the upcoming months.

Here's a closeup of the back of the Elms.

Here's a side view of Chateau sur Mer. So many windows...

Adventures in Newport

This weekend, B and I spent some time in Newport, Rhode Island, home of the famous summer "cottages."

Newport is a great little town with a quaint shopping area (with the usual recognizable stores but also some locally owned places), tons of outdoor dining, and a hip-and-happening vibe. Summer weekends can get busy, especially when a cruise ship is invading, but the less-popular mansions weren't too crowded for us.

The mansions offer a variety of ticketing options. I investigated them before we left home and decided that becoming members of the Preservation Society was the best deal. For $75, we could tour all of the mansions for an entire year. In addition, because the society is a nonprofit organization, we can claim the membership as a charitable deduction on our taxes.

Our first stop was the Elms for the Rooftop and Behind-the-Scenes tour, which was included in our membership. The guided tour took us to places that you can't see on the regular tour, including the roof (obvious from the title) and servants' quarters. Sadly, their rooms were much nicer than nearly every apartment I ever lived in. Life as a servant was difficult and unpleasant, though; they worked long hours, had only a half-day off per week, were always on-call, and could expect to make only $300 per year. The butler enjoyed a significantly better life, for a servant; he had a private bedroom and bathroom and his own pantry and was in charge of all of the other servants.

Because the Elms is one of the bigger mansions and is open through the end of the year--and is even decorated for Christmas, along with the Breakers and Marble House--we decided to skip the regular tour and see some of the mansions that have more limited schedules. We're hoping to return at Christmastime to see the seasonal decorations and will take the tour then.

Our next stop was Chateau sur Mer, a 30,000 square-foot masterpiece with an amazing entryway (unfortunately for us, photos aren't allowed inside the houses) and decadent decorations.

A side note: If you go to Newport, you might be tempted to skip some of the smaller mansions, including this one (yes, in the land of Newport mansions, 30,000 square feet is "small"), but keep this in mind: every mansion tour takes you to a limited number of rooms, so a visit to a smaller house means you're more likely to see more of the house. Additionally, because everyone wants to see the Breakers, you're more likely to be among a smaller crowd at the smaller houses. Also, if this matters to you, the tours at the smaller houses are largely child-free as most kids want to see the ridiculously big houses. Plus, if you prefer a guided tour over an audio tour, stick with the smaller places.

After the Chateau, we headed to Kingscote, which was an interesting enough house but didn't feel that homey to me. It was my least favorite tour but was by no means dull or not worthwhile.

Our last tour was the Isaac Bell House, and I had trouble deciding whether I'd rather live in it or Chateau sur Mer (hypothetically speaking, of course). The Bell House is considered a work in progress; it was acquired by the Preservation Society in recent years and came completely unfurnished and unrestored. The house remains without much furniture and is not well lit (to replicate lighting conditions when the house was originally built), but its natural light and built-in furniture features were gorgeous. Many of the windows on the first floor doubled as doors and opened onto porches that looked out over Bellevue Avenue, where many of the more famous mansions are located.

I highly recommend Newport for a day trip or a long weekend, maybe even a full week if you want to take your time and get to know the town more. Tours at the mansions take about 45 minutes each; the tours at the larger houses are now conducted by audio guide. Three tours are tiring; I think five tours in a day might be too much for most.

For schedules: I wish the society offered a daily schedule with the times that tours leave from each house. Some leave every hour, and others leave every half hour. But the society doesn't offer such a schedule, so you can either try to figure it out yourself or hope for the best. We opted for the latter option and lucked out, arriving just in time to start all of our tours or join a recently begun tour. Keep in mind that if you miss an hourly tour, you'll have a long time to wait.

Photos from VT: Hildene

Last set of pics from VT (I think). Here are some pics from Hildene, the house of the son of Abraham Lincoln and family. The first pic is the back of the house, which is almost as impressive as the front.
Inside the house, in the library. Flash photos weren't allowed, but my cam rose to the challenge. I covet these bookshelves. My folding shelves from Staples, while nice, are woefully inadequate in comparison.

Here's a sandstone (?) sink in the kitchen. A similar (though more impressive) sink belongs to B's brother and sister-in-law and maimed his hand earlier in the summer. He has recovered, and their sink lives on as a planter.

Finally, a picture of the gardens. One of the daughters went to Europe and, upon her return, gifted this garden to her family. It sounded like the ultimate gift that keeps on giving.

Photos from VT: Zipline adventure

Here's the impressively high platform that we had to climb up for our zipline adventure. Daunting, yes. Good thing neither of us has issues with heights. A teenaged girl behind us made it up the stairs but refused to let go of the railing and looked like she might pass out at any moment. Not every adventure is suited for everybody.
Here's the view of the cable from the top of the platform. My palms are sweating just looking at this picture, and I've already ridden the ride! Scary stuff for the non-adrenaline-junkies among us.

And here's the view up the mountain, after you've completed your ride. Scary, it was, but also a very efficient way to get down a mountain.

Photos from VT: Fly fishing

Next up - pics from our fly fishing adventures. We fished in Equinox Pond, which is just a few miles away from the resort and at the foot of Equinox Mountain (are you noticing a naming theme?).

Beautiful scenery. I was overwhelmed trying to picture how this place must look when the leaves are turning - just amazing. A few overachieving trees were already starting to turn; our instructor predicted that leaves would change early this year due to all of the rain. Only time will tell.

You can have weddings and other events in the boathouse on the water. It's so gorgeous that even a rainy day couldn't ruin the scenery.

The view of the boathouse from the pond.

Here's B, casting. I never quite got the hang of it but he was very good. Had the weather conditions been more cooperative, I suspect he'd have landed himself an impressive fish or two.

Photos from VT: Our hotel

Here are a few pics from our Vermont trip.

First up, our hotel, the Equinox. It was lovely, huge, and old.

Here's the view of the back.

And another view of the back.

I had hoped that we wouldn't get reception, but we did.

I loved the blue and brown ottoman/chairs in the corner and would love to get a similar set (in different colors) for our living room, in front of our fireplace. I guess I should have thought to ask who made them before I left...

Back from Vermont

We're back home again from a five-day, four-night sojourn in Manchester, Vermont. Manchester is in southern Vermont, on the edge of the Green Mountain National Forest. We stayed at the Equinox Resort, which is lovely and charming, an older resort that fell into disrepair for a while but has been renovated to be better than the very bestest that it once was. Our stay featured perhaps the hottest weather that Vermont has seen and will see throughout the entire summer. Ninety-plus-degree heat coupled with swimming-through-air humidity inspired us to avoid strenuous outdoor activities after 11 AM or so, but we still made the most of our time there.

Manchester attracts people from all over the country and world--our tour of Hildene, the home of one of Lincoln's sons, included people from Germany, England, and Dubai--but most cars feature Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey plates. The town has only a couple of token chain restaurants (McDonald's and a Dunkin Donuts in a gas station)--though locally owned restaurants abound--and features a plethora of outlet stores, from the usual (Gap, Banana, Pac Sun) to the higher-end (Burberry, Coach, Armani) to the unusual (Peruvian Connection, Overland). Parking lots are overrun with Land Rovers and Lexus SUVs, though Subies were represented well, especially among cars with green plates.

The options for activities are somewhat limited--at times I wondered if we had taken the vacation 30 years too early, though we did see other people our age at the hotel--so we tried to spread them out over our time there. Here's what we did.

Hiking
We hiked up Equinox Mountain. By "up," I don't mean all the way up; we later encountered two women who had taken on the challenge and were glad that we chose a less strenuous challenge. We walked up to a scenic overlook that offered a nice view of the valley below.

Fishing
We took a 2-hour fly fishing lesson from an Orvis instructor. We had a few nibbles but no catches. I am far from a master at the technique, but I enjoyed learning something new, and the pond that we were fishing in was gorgeous, like something out of a movie.

Shopping
Despite the heat, I managed to convince myself to try on and buy two new jackets. One is a winter ski jacket, not as puffy or heavy as the EMS jacket that I wore in Germany and a bit more stylish. August is apparently a good time to buy winter wear in Vermont.

I also found and bought my dream raincoat, for which I have been searching for years. It's red, reaches to mid-thigh or so, has long-enough sleeves, includes a hood, and is waterproof without feeling like rubber. Even at 50 percent off the original price and an additional 30 percent discount, the price of the raincoat was 2 or 3 times more than I wanted to spend. But I couldn't leave the rainwear behind, or I'd regret the decision, potentially forever, or at least until I found a replacement raincoat, a task that could take years to accomplish, considering that I've been searching for at least 3 years and have in that time purchased 2 inadequate--but not inexpensive!--substitutes.

My coat collection has grown quite a bit in recent years and is too large--the overflow has moved out of our downstairs coat closet and into the closet in our spare bedroom, so it's time to cull the herd. I identified 4 jackets or coats that no longer make the cut, and I'll be passing them along to family members, friends, or anyone who is willing to take them off my hands. I've also started culling my shoe herd and found 4 pairs that I no longer wear; they're also getting passed along the way. Slowly, slowly I work toward owning only clothing that I love...

Adventure
Bromley Mountain offers skiing in the winter and adventure-like activities in the summer. We rode the alpine slide (wicked fun) - I rode on the first-time rider track (aka the slow track) and had a blast. I saw a little girl nearly fall off her sled on the track next to me and decided not to push my sled or myself too much.

We also rode a new ride, their zip line flyer, which is a chair on a half-mile-long zip line. You can reach up to 50 MPH as you fly down the mountain. It was a bit terrifying, being strapped into a chair by a couple of sullen teenagers as I thought, "what if they make a mistake or forget to attach something?" However, they were careful, and I survived and enjoyed it. B and I were released at about the same time but he still beat me down to the bottom.

Culture
Yes, there's always time for cultural activities on vacation. As I mentioned earlier, we toured Hildene, the summer estate of Abraham Lincoln's son. We also visited the Southern Vermont Arts Center, which featured an exhibit on canine art. We bought a couple of prints from the gallery across the street. More items that need to be framed...

Golf and spa
One of us golfed, and the other one went to the spa. You can probably guess who did what. My tension tamer massage was excellent. B played a great round of birthday golf.

Lounging
There was plenty of time for lounging. The Falcon Bar on the property of the hotel featured a deck area, complete with fire pit. The deck faced at Equinox Mountain and featured a menu with gourmet cheeses and chocolates each evening. Mmm - I preferred the chocolates but the cheese plate had some fun accoutrements, including salted, oily almonds (yum). We played some games, including Five Crowns (always awesome) and Yahtzee (mostly a game of luck, but strategy plays an important part, as I learned).

Overall, it was a lovely, relaxing trip, and I recommend the Equinox Resort and Manchester if you're looking for a low-key getaway.

Pain tolerance for vanity vs. health

This evening, as I was lying immobile in the dentist's chair, wondering if I have that redhead gene mutation that causes you to feel more pain (or is it that you're more resistant to painkillers? I'm not sure) and wondering why the time between dentist visits always seems so short, my mind started to wander to other painful activities that I undertake.

Getting a facial came to mind. I willingly sign up for this "treatment," despite the physical pain it causes and the not-insignificant dent it makes in my wallet. The obvious difference between a facial and a dentist visit is that one is strictly for vanity and the second is for health. However, I would much more willingly get a facial than go to the dentist, even though the pain from the facial is arguably worse (though in fairness, the pain from a facial is fairly quick; the pain from the dentist was seemingly neverending).

Why is the pain from vanity more acceptable than the pain from healthcare? Perhaps dental visits feel like a medical requirement, an onerous responsibility I cannot shirk without feeling copious guilt. On the other hand, facials are strictly voluntary. And because you have to pay for them--pay a lot for them, in fact--you convince yourself that it is a pampering experience.

Clearly there is a large market for pampering. Perhaps if dental offices could make their cleanings feel more like spa visits, going to the dentist would be more popular. Well, maybe only if they were willing to put away those sharp tools.

About those tools - they were scraping plaque off my teeth. Apparently I have plaque issues. The hygienist recommended that I buy an electric toothbrush because my manual brush, despite my best efforts, was insufficient. In better news, the hygienist, after reviewing my dental x-rays, said that my teeth were "like rocks," which is apparently a compliment.

Endings and beginnings

Less than two weeks ago, I dreamt about my grandmother, whose health was remarkably good for her advanced age but had been declining in recent weeks, a not-altogether-surprising change considering that she was several years from graduating from octogenarian status.

In my dream, she was an uplifting vision of a woman I hadn't seen in years, the Grammy of my childhood. She was spry with carefully curled hair and a quick smile for her grandchildren. Her positive energy was palpable, and I couldn't get over the transformation from my grandmother of the present and my grandmother of my dream and the past. The dream made me happy in my sleep and brought me comfort the next morning when I received news that she had passed away in the night.

The dream could be a coincidence - we had been planning to visit her that day, so she was on my mind - but I don't think so. I feel very blessed that my last "memory" of my grandmother is of the spirit that she embodied for most of her life.

She loved her family above all else, though candy was a close second. I suspect that my sweet tooth comes from that side of the family. She was laid to rest with hard candy and M&Ms, her favorites. I'm sure she appreciates the sentiment.

My sister and I used to spend summer days with her while my mother worked. She was willing to play card games with us for hours and played like any girl our own age. She introduced us to fabulous food combinations, such as cream cheese on Ritz crackers. Healthy, perhaps not. Delicious? Absolutely. I dined on cream cheese on crackers the night of her funeral in her honor.

When she and my grandfather would take us out for shopping adventures, they always bought us each a toy, which we could pick out ourselves. It was like Christmas all summer long! Christmas itself was a bacchanalia. She'd shop from Thanksgiving until Christmas and then stay up all night Christmas Eve to wrap all of the gifts. We probably decimated the gift pile in 20 minutes or less. Great memories.

My grandmother is no longer with us, but she's now with my grandfather, keeping an eye on all of us from afar. We miss her.

In happier news, B's and my niece was born the day after my grandmother's passing. (Crazy weekend? Yes, you could say that.) She's adorable and generally calm, except perhaps when I'm holding her, but what can you do. I am looking forward to watching her grow up.