Travels Days 3-5

Before leaving NYC, we took a taxi back to the church/Temple so that we could attend church on Sunday morning.  The ward that met first was the singles ward : )  We fit right in!  The meeting was really awesome.  The speakers where great, and chapel was bright and beautiful, the young people nearly filled the pews.  

One of the speakers was a younger (26ish) man who gave a talk on trust, faith, and using the Atonement.  I think he must have been a pre-med student because he talked about how he had had to have some surgery and that he knew that it was going to be a rough recovery with plenty of pain meds involved.  He worried about the danger of becoming addicted to them but knew that with the knowledge he had, that it would be okay.  The pain was pretty bad so he took them for a few weeks and then one night, he had very strong impression that he should ween himself off of the meds soon.  The pain was still fairly bad and he was afraid to not take them but he was impressed again that he should back off of them and trust that the Lord would help him through it.  He spoke about how the Savior knew exactly what he was going through because he had felt his pain already, in the garden of Gethsemne.  He testified that we were never meant to go through the pains and trails of this life without HIM.  He can, and will, be there every step of the way, if we let Him.   It was a very powerful moment that I have thought about many times since that day.  

After leaving NYC we headed to Ron and Marcia's (Dave's sisters) home in Connecticut.   Ron made us the most fantastic dinner ever!!  Steak, jumbo stuffed shrimp, twice baked potatoes, salad, rolls, etc.  AMAZING!  Between the great food and even better company, it was the perfect end to an already perfect day.  

After a few hours of  visiting, we headed out to find our condo that dad and mom arranged for us in Newport RI.  We found it without much trouble and settled in for the night.
In the morning, we headed out to find breakfast.  Our (the girls) goal was to NOT eat at any chain restaurants while we were traveling.  We did pretty well until the last couple of days and the boys played along fairly well.

We bought tickets to see 5 of the Mansions of Rhode Island.  HOLY COW!!  They were amazing!!  Even after seeing 5 of them I still couldn't wrap my brain around the wealth that those families had and they only used them for "summer cottages" for about 9 weeks during the summer.  Most of them were abandoned after only a few years of use (due to high taxes).  They are all owned and maintained by the Historical Society now.  We weren't allowed to take photos inside but let me assure you, they had the finest furnishings complete with gold leaf everywhere, marble statues, tapestries, and the most modern conveniences (like electricity) of the day.

The Breakers was built by the Vanderbilt family.

Side view of the Breakers

Front entrance of the Breakers

Marble House

This home was lived in by one of the champions of women's suffrage, who later booted her husband out!

Rose cliff, my favorite

Chateau Sir Mur (I think that's how it's spelled)

While we were driving around exploring Newport, we came across this...
An old, abandoned, burnt out "mansion".  We stopped the car and walked across a large field to get to it.  We are all curious people so it's a good thing that we had access to 4G phones, because we were able to Google search and discovered that this was just the HORSE STABLE of the mansion that is no longer there.  It belonged to the governor of RI in the early 1900's.  Turns out that the large field that we walked across, was were the mansion sat.

HORSE STABLE!

Must have been nice to be this mans horse!

We spent a very chilly few hours touring Fort Adams.  The wind coming off of the ocean was crazy!  But it was very interesting to explore this place.
The guide was an old Irish guy (the Irish settle Newport and surrounding areas) who had a dry sense of humor.  He told us all about how the fort was constructed and what it took to build it, which was pretty amazing.  Then I asked him how many times they had to defend themselves from British enemy ships trying to invade and his response was..."Oh, the sissy's never showed up!!"  I laughed so hard!!  All that work, for nothin!?  Nope...Peace through strength!

View from the fort across the bay

They built listening tunnels so that if the British were to tunnel down and attempt entry that way, they would hear them digging.  Clever!!

Part of the Listening Tunnels

Cannon and artillery holes in the massive walls

More to come later...