A lost day
Jul. 28th, 2022 11:00 pmToday disappeared on us. Lucky Uncle was out for a while and I visited one of mom's friends but that's about it.
I did finally get to see the last Ghostbuster's movie. Really enjoyed it. I loved how it tied into the original. It was everything the all female one wasn't.
So let's return to Rhode Island
Day 2 in RI
Today was rather a waste and I could have cut my trip by a day had I known. I was angry at myself for getting a late start but as it turns out had I gotten off on time I’d have been sitting in the car a half hour because their opening time was at 1030 not 10 as it said on the website. Had they been open one hour longer I could have worked this in yesterday. Ah well, what can you do?
It was the Gilbert Stuart grist mill and homestead . I was only thinking history! I didn’t recognize the name for a good reason. Portrait artists do not make my top ten things I like…or top 20 …or 50. I had no idea that the artist who did the famous unfinished portrait of George Washington was born here.
As for the mill’s there were two: a corn mill and far more interesting to me under the house where Stuart was born, his father had the first snuff mill in the colonies. Thinking about it you realize why they rebelled against England who wanted complete dependence. They wouldn’t even provide the mills so tobacco was grown here, shipped to Scotland, milled to snuff and sent back. Stuart senior managed to get a mill, which was basically a large funnel with a mental cylinder attached to a ball that rolled around on the top and the cylinder crushes the tobacco. It was a simple but effective system.
As for Stuart junior, of course I do know his art having seen a fair amount of it in history books. The one I actually liked was The Skater. Nothing on site was real (other than up in the gallery) because you can’t have priceless portraits hanging in unheated/uncooled buildings from the 1700s. The water wheel could be heard in the bedroom he was born in and that gave me a story (horror) idea. They had a fish ladder because of the dam that ran the mills and an eel bucket which made me happy because that mitigates the destruction dams can do to the aquatic life.
But at the end of the day it was small and took about an hour. I looked up stuff to do and oddly stuff that didn’t come up when I researched it came up now, parks and the like. Anyhow the Kinney Azalea garden was only 4 miles away , figured I’d do that and then pick a park.
Well it was not 4 miles away (so both Google Maps and my GPS were high or something) since at least one stretch of the road before I was supposed to turn was longer than that. When I got there and give a 5 $ donation as the garden survives on donations and buying plants, I had a bad feeling. Yeah what a giant waste of my time. It turns out it was literally in someone’s back yard (WHERE they sold the plants I have no idea but it wasn’t there) And I’m dumb because I knew it was past bloom season for azaleas and rhododendrons so I wasted like 45 minutes finding this. Yeah they’re big old plants, there was a nice moon gate but WHY was this even on best things to do lists? Beginning to think my parents should just mow some paths and ask for donations and let people walk in their yard too
I can’t find any fast food and suddenly it’s nearly 1:30 in the afternoon so I head for the hotel thinking I can check in early well it’s a) hard to get to because the road is under construction. B) across from the mall so I stop at not your average joe’s for an app lunch, which was so filling I knew dinner would be an issue. The hotel did let me check in early, yay.
I’m not an urban chic/ industrial fan but it made for a fun difference. Okay it’s ugly assed concrete but I look out over the slowest moving river ever… It’s 66 degrees inside and it’s concrete and I’m finally cool. The bathroom isn’t sealed away entirely just a partial wall and there’s a cylindrical bump out into the bedroom that’s the shower (it was like showering in a fish bowl). This hotel the NYLO by Hilton used to be a textile mill. While it would be great we still had textile mills working here, I’m also just as glad that we are repurposing these old buildings. Part of it is this hotel and the rest of it is private condos which is so much better than abandoned.
Dinner was disappointing at Apponaug Brewery on the other end of the mill. The sour beer was good but the brisket poutine had too much fat and not enough brisket (literally a couple random gobbets of pure fat). I learned my GPS doesn’t like Providence. I didn’t like the parking situation (which is why I’m NOT at the Biltmore where I wanted to be. That’s a 1920s era haunted hotel filled with lovely art deco). I had to deal with it because I wanted to take the haunted history boat tour .
One of the suggested parking garages (by the tour group) was closed and the other one has no one manning it. Is that because of Sundays? I don’t know so I pull into the nearby Hampton’s valet area and ask them. They have no idea. Really?!? That garage right next door. So I park in it and have to walk past piss places for the homeless and I’m NOT happy I’ll have to return this way alone two blocks after dark.
I meet the boat owner who was happy I was so early (I got there almost an hour early because I was worried about parking) and I said I was worried about parking and he points to the metered ones right in front of the dock. He tells me park there and it’s free at this hour and free in general with my handicapped tag (turns out that’s true in MA too. I need to see if it’s true in OH). I run back and move my damn car since I didn’t even see those meters and they were free at night.
The ghost tour was fun. It included the story of 8 murdered prostitutes at the Biltmore including the 11 year old one who hides from men staying in the room. The other really notable one was the ghosts near the mall which was an old prison and was where Nicolas Gordon was hung for murdering Amasa Sprague but he was innocent. You can read the story here. It’s a tale of classism and prejudice (against the Irish in this case). They went as far as to arrest his whole family including the dog.
I have no idea how I got out of that boat but I did it. I also learned they do gondola rides on the river (and that’s a story idea). Also they had COVERED this river for a century because it had gotten so dirty, can you imagine it? Literally boarded it up with bridges and what not so the water couldn’t be seen. Also something I wanted to see but didn’t get the chance to was the water fire . There was a tour the night before of a partial lighting of this art installation but it was sold out by the time I learned about it. The full lighting was this week. Imagine this, fire on the water. I really would have enjoyed that.
( historical flavored pics )
I did finally get to see the last Ghostbuster's movie. Really enjoyed it. I loved how it tied into the original. It was everything the all female one wasn't.
So let's return to Rhode Island
Day 2 in RI
Today was rather a waste and I could have cut my trip by a day had I known. I was angry at myself for getting a late start but as it turns out had I gotten off on time I’d have been sitting in the car a half hour because their opening time was at 1030 not 10 as it said on the website. Had they been open one hour longer I could have worked this in yesterday. Ah well, what can you do?
It was the Gilbert Stuart grist mill and homestead . I was only thinking history! I didn’t recognize the name for a good reason. Portrait artists do not make my top ten things I like…or top 20 …or 50. I had no idea that the artist who did the famous unfinished portrait of George Washington was born here.
As for the mill’s there were two: a corn mill and far more interesting to me under the house where Stuart was born, his father had the first snuff mill in the colonies. Thinking about it you realize why they rebelled against England who wanted complete dependence. They wouldn’t even provide the mills so tobacco was grown here, shipped to Scotland, milled to snuff and sent back. Stuart senior managed to get a mill, which was basically a large funnel with a mental cylinder attached to a ball that rolled around on the top and the cylinder crushes the tobacco. It was a simple but effective system.
As for Stuart junior, of course I do know his art having seen a fair amount of it in history books. The one I actually liked was The Skater. Nothing on site was real (other than up in the gallery) because you can’t have priceless portraits hanging in unheated/uncooled buildings from the 1700s. The water wheel could be heard in the bedroom he was born in and that gave me a story (horror) idea. They had a fish ladder because of the dam that ran the mills and an eel bucket which made me happy because that mitigates the destruction dams can do to the aquatic life.
But at the end of the day it was small and took about an hour. I looked up stuff to do and oddly stuff that didn’t come up when I researched it came up now, parks and the like. Anyhow the Kinney Azalea garden was only 4 miles away , figured I’d do that and then pick a park.
Well it was not 4 miles away (so both Google Maps and my GPS were high or something) since at least one stretch of the road before I was supposed to turn was longer than that. When I got there and give a 5 $ donation as the garden survives on donations and buying plants, I had a bad feeling. Yeah what a giant waste of my time. It turns out it was literally in someone’s back yard (WHERE they sold the plants I have no idea but it wasn’t there) And I’m dumb because I knew it was past bloom season for azaleas and rhododendrons so I wasted like 45 minutes finding this. Yeah they’re big old plants, there was a nice moon gate but WHY was this even on best things to do lists? Beginning to think my parents should just mow some paths and ask for donations and let people walk in their yard too
I can’t find any fast food and suddenly it’s nearly 1:30 in the afternoon so I head for the hotel thinking I can check in early well it’s a) hard to get to because the road is under construction. B) across from the mall so I stop at not your average joe’s for an app lunch, which was so filling I knew dinner would be an issue. The hotel did let me check in early, yay.
I’m not an urban chic/ industrial fan but it made for a fun difference. Okay it’s ugly assed concrete but I look out over the slowest moving river ever… It’s 66 degrees inside and it’s concrete and I’m finally cool. The bathroom isn’t sealed away entirely just a partial wall and there’s a cylindrical bump out into the bedroom that’s the shower (it was like showering in a fish bowl). This hotel the NYLO by Hilton used to be a textile mill. While it would be great we still had textile mills working here, I’m also just as glad that we are repurposing these old buildings. Part of it is this hotel and the rest of it is private condos which is so much better than abandoned.
Dinner was disappointing at Apponaug Brewery on the other end of the mill. The sour beer was good but the brisket poutine had too much fat and not enough brisket (literally a couple random gobbets of pure fat). I learned my GPS doesn’t like Providence. I didn’t like the parking situation (which is why I’m NOT at the Biltmore where I wanted to be. That’s a 1920s era haunted hotel filled with lovely art deco). I had to deal with it because I wanted to take the haunted history boat tour .
One of the suggested parking garages (by the tour group) was closed and the other one has no one manning it. Is that because of Sundays? I don’t know so I pull into the nearby Hampton’s valet area and ask them. They have no idea. Really?!? That garage right next door. So I park in it and have to walk past piss places for the homeless and I’m NOT happy I’ll have to return this way alone two blocks after dark.
I meet the boat owner who was happy I was so early (I got there almost an hour early because I was worried about parking) and I said I was worried about parking and he points to the metered ones right in front of the dock. He tells me park there and it’s free at this hour and free in general with my handicapped tag (turns out that’s true in MA too. I need to see if it’s true in OH). I run back and move my damn car since I didn’t even see those meters and they were free at night.
The ghost tour was fun. It included the story of 8 murdered prostitutes at the Biltmore including the 11 year old one who hides from men staying in the room. The other really notable one was the ghosts near the mall which was an old prison and was where Nicolas Gordon was hung for murdering Amasa Sprague but he was innocent. You can read the story here. It’s a tale of classism and prejudice (against the Irish in this case). They went as far as to arrest his whole family including the dog.
I have no idea how I got out of that boat but I did it. I also learned they do gondola rides on the river (and that’s a story idea). Also they had COVERED this river for a century because it had gotten so dirty, can you imagine it? Literally boarded it up with bridges and what not so the water couldn’t be seen. Also something I wanted to see but didn’t get the chance to was the water fire . There was a tour the night before of a partial lighting of this art installation but it was sold out by the time I learned about it. The full lighting was this week. Imagine this, fire on the water. I really would have enjoyed that.
( historical flavored pics )