Bees and Kites

This trip got off to a rather ignominious start but ended up being pretty fun. On the advice of a friend, we booked a campsite at Melville Ponds Campground in Portsmouth, RI - just north of Newport. She stressed that it was a no-frills place which suited us fine since we usually don't use the pool or play Bingo or whatever. Since it was close to Newport, we figured we'd bring the tandem and use it to head into town on Saturday.

We headed out on Friday afternoon and made the easy, 55 mile trip down. We had a bit of a bobble finding the place. We spotted the road that the GPS said to turn on but it looked like a school parking lot so we didn't turn. The next light had a sign for the campground though so no big deal. The road leading to the entrance was abysmal - we basically inched along for quite a ways so as not to destroy the rig. We pulled in and I went in to register.

I had a reservation and I guess I paid half the rate - hmm, was it really $45 per night? As I pulled out my wallet and got ready to hand the lady my credit card, she said "we only take cash or checks". Oh.

Seriously? Is that even possible?

I guess we must have mailed a check for the deposit too. Of course, I didn't have enough money so I thought I was going to have to go find an ATM. As I was heading back to the rig I thought, hey, Deb still has those things called checks! Problem solved!

So we register and head to the site. As I'm getting the rig situated in the site, I realize that we don't have sewer - just water and electric. Really? $45 a night for just water and electric? Dang!

I get situated where I want and put the jacks down - going through the process of manually leveling since the auto-levelers don't work. I did put some bubble levels on the wall earlier in the week so that I wouldn't have to keep using the level app on my iPhone to do it. I put the sliders out and then went out to hook up water and power. Well, I was close to the power post but then realized that there was no water spigot to be found. I finally spotted it - a tee feeding my neighbor's site and mine - all the way up by the road!

So, the power post is at the extreme rear of the site on the left side, and the water is diagonally across from it at the front of the site. No way is my hose going to reach from the road, all the way to the back of the site and connect to the inlet on the left side of the camper.

So, up with the jacks, in with the slides, jockey the rig forward and to the right - and try to split the difference and guess if my hose will reach. Luckily, I guessed right on the first try and got the hose connected. Back down with the jacks, level the beast, out with the slides. 


Then I went to connect the power.

Wasps in the power cover. Lots of wasps.

I gingerly lifted up the cover just to see... Crap! Yup, they sting! One got me on the arm before I could even react. I went and got the awning pull-down pole and tried to whack the little nest they were building off the post. I managed to get it off but they were still swarming so I went up to the office and asked them to bring a spray. Half an hour later, the guy showed up and blasted the box. It's a week later as I write this and my arm still hurts at the sting site.

Anyway, we finally got situated, fired up the grill and broke out the cocktails. After some Rumicube we called it a night. Sometime during that night, we lost power. Luckily, it had cooled off considerably so the lack of A/C wasn't a killer. I figured someone just tripped a breaker somewhere but casually asked Deb, who had gotten up to look around, if everyone else was out too. She said "No, just us". Crap.

I got up and grabbed a flashlight and went to the power post. I gingerly opened the cover door, expecting to find that the wasps had come back with friends and had re-wired the post into some sort of doomsday device - set to detonate when some hapless fool lifts the cover. Maybe I've seen too many Gary Larson cartoons?

Well, no bang, just the cord pulled out of the plug. Hmm. It then dawned on me that since I had moved the rig so far away from the post, it had invited everyone heading to the restrooms up the hill to cut through our site. Someone had evidently tripped on the cord during a midnight potty break and cut us off.

After breakfast on Saturday, we hemmed and hawed over whether to make the effort to bike into Newport. It's our usual inertia - we love the bike once we are on it but getting off our butts in the first place is sometimes a challenge. We finally overcame the friction and got moving. We did have one problem though. Over the last year or so I have proceeded to lose all of our biking water bottles - someplace. I think I usually leave them at soccer games but regardless, we had none. Oh well, it was cool and we'll find a bike store in Newport...

I looked at a map and plotted our route into Newport - staying off the main road for as long as possible. The route took us along the bay and we had some beautiful views of boats and water and glorious vistas. It looked like a fleet of old America's Cup 12 meters were playing on the bay - fabulous!

There are all kinds of Navy facilities on the bay and we passed a bunch of them. Then, we came upon a massive aircraft carrier being scrapped at a dock. I later found out that CV-60 is the USS Saratoga. Kind of erie seeing that there and thinking of what she had been through.

We got to the end of the coastal route and had to take the main road for the rest of the way in. Traffic quickly built up as we entered Newport and we soon found out why - the Hall of Fame tennis tournament was going on. Newport has some swanky grass courts which is where all the mansion owners played back in the day. 

It was fun cruising by the stalled traffic heading into town but I wanted to head down by the harbor so I turned off the route to the mansions and then on to Thames street. Big mistake.

Thames is a quaint little *cobblestone* street. Yikes! We inched along - hoping that my front wheel wouldn't catch in a rut and pitch us over. It was a jarring ride - one I hope to never do again.

We headed back up to Bellview street, which is the main drag out to the mansions. We'd been by these before in the car but they are still very impressive. We never have toured any of them though.

Bellview ends and turns into Ocean Drive and then it gets really pretty. There are some absolutely amazing houses out on that point. Pictures really don't convey the wealth that oozes from those places.

As we continued along Ocean Drive, I spotted what looked like kites in the sky. We've seen them before, being flown over a popular park at the end of the peninsula.

Then we started seeing a *lot* of kites.

Big kites, triple kites, lots of kites. Turns out it was the Newport Kite Festival that weekend - who knew!

We stopped and watched, grabbed a bite, and took pictures. Very cool!

The route back seemed longer than the one out and it was getting really hot. And we didn't have any water.

We made a feeble attempt to find a bike store but had no luck. On the way out of town, I pulled into a convenience store to buy some sports drink. I only had one dollar left and they wouldn't take a credit card for less than a minimum $5 purchase. In hindsight I should have bought 5 bottles of Powerade but they guy spotted me the 6 cents tax on on $.99 bottle so that's what I got.

As Deb and I stood outside the store gulping it down, two sketchy-looking guys walked past us. One of them was wearing a tank top and we could see a massive bandage covering his entire chest. I wonder what the other guy looked like...

We managed to make it back to the campsite but I was cooked. It's really embarrassing too because the ride was only 30 miles total. I should not have struggled like that - sucks to get old...

On Sunday, we broke camp and headed up to the dump station to do the dirty deed. After a wait behind another guy, we were on our way.

All in all, it was a good weekend. I think the campground is a little pricey but it was a nice place and we had plenty of room. We had a great ride and enjoyed the festival so I'm glad we went.