Breakers! Boulders! Fribbles!!!

Today was our last day in New England, and we had some loose ends to tie up before our long trek south to DC tomorrow.  First on the agenda...a drive down to Newport, Rhode Island to tour The Breakers, the summer "cottage" of the Vanderbilt family.  Some cottage.  The home has 33 bedrooms...for the servants!  Lord knows how many bedrooms for the actual family, along with 20 bathrooms (a lot for the late 1800's).  The interior spaces were absolutely unbelievable in their opulence.  Unfortunately, no photography was allowed inside the house, so I only have exterior shots to show you, but you get an idea of the grandeur of the home.

 

Every person touring the home received a pair of headphones that presented a very well done audio tour describing each room as you moved through the house, as well as some background information on the family and the era.  One interesting tidbit regarding the "gilded age" of the late 19th/early 20th centuries pertained to what brought about the end of this era.  Newport's golden age effectively ended in 1913, the year the Federal income tax was established.  The wealthy industrialists that build most of the Newport mansions no longer had the means or the wherewithal for such displays of conspicuous consumption, and many of the families abandoned or sold the homes.  Anyone that knows me well knows how I feel about taxes, in particular Federal taxes relative to the Constitution.  When those homes ceased to be used as they were intended, not only did the wealthy owners suffer...hundreds of house staff lost their jobs.  Let it trickle down!  Ok, off my soap box and back to the report.

After we left Newport, we had to make a detour to Flagg RV to pick up our new wiper motor so I could get the wipers on the Holiday Road operating again.  Uh...no.  Winnebago failed to ship the motor when they were supposed to, so it will arrive after we have already left for DC.  The folks at Flagg are going to ship it to us at our DC campground though, so as long as we don't hit rain on Wednesday for the drive we'll be ok. 

After returning to the campground from Rhode Island, Shirley did some laundry while the girls and I checked out some HUGE boulders that are strewn around the campground, presumably left by glaciers long ago.  Check these out.

 

For our last evening in Massachusetts, we decided to hit Friendly's for some dinner and ice cream.  I had the clam basket...something I hadn't had in years.  It was pretty tasty.  We all had ice cream for desert.  I had a Fribble!  Man, I wish we had a Friendly's near us!

Aunt Chris - I told Stella that you wanted her to get the clown head sundae.  She started crying and saying "I don't want the head sundae, I don't want the head sundae".  Thanks a lot for traumatizing my daughter.  But here is a pic of the Clown Head Sundae from the menu.  Pretty creepy if you ask me.

Well, that's it from New England.  We leave first thing in the morning for Cherry Hill RV Park in College Park, MD, for a full week of touring in and around DC.  Talk to you all from there...