The Honeymooners

Last year I told you about our first date, which was 13 years ago yesterday. Nine years ago yesterday, we got the wedding over with and were flying off the next day to Newport, RI, for the most wonderful, most romantical, most magical, most fantabulous honeymoon ever.

We stayed on the top floor of the Inn at Shadow Lawn, which is supposedly haunted; the window on the left was our room and the window in the middle was our huge bathroom:



The building was gray when we stayed there; looking at their website I see that it's been repainted and is now called the Agincourt Inn. I also see that they've redecorated our room, which used to look like this:



And now it looks like this. The chandelier and the bedside lamps are the same but everything else is new.

Anyway, before we left, Bridgie packed up to go wherever she stayed that week and took every pair of shoes with her except my high heels for work and a pair of wooden-soled clogs, so I clomped around Newport for the first two days in those stupid clogs and they damn near killed me. My poor feet were swollen, lacerated and bleeding! On the third day we finally detoured to a shoe store and bought me some tennis shoes, which turned out to be only slightly more comfortable. Here's a picture of me and those friggin' clogs at Rosecliff; you'll notice they're in my hand and not on my feet:



But it didn't matter. We had a great time traipsing all over town and, when we couldn't hike any further, we'd call a cab to come and rescue us. We managed to visit all the mansions on the Preservation Society tour, plus Belcourt Castle and Astor's Beechwood. Here's Mikey at The Breakers, acting like he owned the place:



And then, on our last full day there, we somehow got the bright idea to rent bicycles. We did fine, at first, until we passed the point of no return, and then it was pure hell. Starting downtown, we pedaled to the end of Belleview Avenue and then followed the road that circled the southwest side of the island, and back to downtown to turn in our bikes. I figured it up afterward; I think it was about fourteen miles.

On the south side of the island we found a public beach, so we stopped to wade. Well, I stopped to wade; Mikey still has Jaws-phobia so he watched me wade. I got out about knee-deep and looked down to see jellyfish swirling all around my legs. I was back on the shore in a split-second, hopping around the dead jellyfish all over the sand. I dunno how I didn't get stung.

At the far southwest corner of the island was Brenton Point, where the sea hurled itself against jagged rocks and sprayed way up in the air. It was a spectacular sight but I didn't get any pictures because, by that point, I was too busy pedaling grimly along while praying for a flat tire so we could legitimately call someone to come and rescue us.

No such luck, though, so we pressed on until we reached Hammersmith Farm, Jackie O's childhood summer home, so we toured that and then we pedaled back into town and turned in our bikes and we will never, ever do that again.

In spite of the parts that didn't go quite right, there's isn't anything about that trip I would change. It was perfect in every way. Sometimes, when life gets us down, we'll look at each other, sigh and say, "Oh, God, I wish we were in Newport."

Last night, we celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary with a bottle of Louis Jadot Beaujolais-Villages and our photo album from that trip, and agreed that our tenth wedding anniversary sounded like the perfect time to go back for a second honeymoon.

If I can get Mikey on a plane, that is. You know how he is about that.