Weekend Travels- Providence

November, is that you?
Newport, RI
The Breakers

For the first in what will undoubtedly be many weekend trips touring New England, we went to Rhode Island. More specifically, we went to Providence to see our friend KJ.

After chaos and confusion at the Port Authority on Friday evening, we found the bus terminal where we were to depart from, and determined in our search that there are in fact, as many bus terminals in the Port Authority as there are days in the year. We found out that you get what you pay for, and a $37 roundtrip ticket will buy more than you might have guessed, which was mostly an earful from Mr. Talks-Too-Loud-On-His-Phone-To-His-Mother Guy and sheer amazement at the guy sitting in front of KR and AV who drank an entire two-liter of Sunkist and never had to use the restroom.

KJ picked us up in Providence and gave us a car-tour of the city before taking us home for wine and popcorn. We got to catch up and see her apartment and went to bed since it was Friday and we were all exhausted from the work week.

We woke up and made the bad decision to forego showers until later in the day (bad because bedhead is only inexcusable for a certain number of hours, especially in damp weather), and KJ took us to a bakery for breakfast. We drove to Narragansett and stopped by KJ's family's beach house to say hello to her parents on the way to Newport for the afternoon. KJ's parents had just gotten in town from Texas to get the house ready for the summer, so we hung around for awhile, then got on the road again.

The beauty of the state of Rhode Island is that you can drive 15-30 minutes and basically be anywhere in the state. I've driven through El Paso ONCE in my life on a roadtrip from Dallas to Arizona and swore I would never do it again because it was just that boring. Rhode Island on the other hand... the highways aren't crowded, trees everywhere, everything is close by, you can still go to the ocean and be back by dinner time. Kind of ideal. They even have Diet Dr. Pepper, if you are visiting KJ's parents, which is always a selling point.

We toured the Breakers mansion on the beach in Newport, which is a scenic beach town and reminded me of an older, more refined and Northeastern version of Seaside, Florida. I visited Newport for the first time with KJ five summers ago, and was convinced if I ever felt inclined to have an outdoor or destination wedding, I would have to get in good with the preservation society in Newport. Jackie Kennedy pulled it off- surely I could too.

KJ and her roommates had a Cinco de Mayo party Saturday night, and we got to meet a few of her friends and her boyfriend. Sunday we went to her favorite brunch place after dodging marathon traffic, took a driving tour of Providence during daylight that included an impromptu open house tour and a trip to the Providence Place mall. Oh the days of the indoor mall and the air-conditioned car, how we miss you.

All in all it was a great trip, and we already invited ourselves back for a weekend this summer.