Today's plan is to travel to Watch Hill, Rhode Island, which in addition to looking like a cute little town to visit, is also where Taylor Swift owns a beautiful mansion. This town would, most likely, not have been a destination spot for us but Kathi's PhD advisor, Katy Head, apparently is a Taylor Swift fanatic and when she found out that Kathi would be in Rhode Island expressed her desire to live vicariously through Kathi with a visit to the mansion (or at least as close as we could get). Not wanting to disappoint and always open to places to go and things to do while on these trips we thought, why not?
After a leisurely morning of lounging on the couches perusing the internet, eating cheesy scrambled eggs and all those things that we enjoy doing, we showered and hopped into the car and headed south to Watch Hill. Ok, so while Taylor Swift's house is probably the largest home in the town and sits on the highest point, it is by no means the ONLY mansion in Watch Hill. This town is obviously home to many wealthy folks. We did hit a yard sale while driving around town (my husband will be very proud of me for this), thinking we would find something amazing in a yard sale at one of these homes, but, I have to say we were disappointed in the offerings. However the homeowner was a charming Peruvian man who came out and whom we had a delightful chat with. We made our way out toward the Watch Hill lighthouse, where I had read one could see Taylor's home. We determined which home was hers, took a few pictures then made our way back toward our car. We had to park at the foot of the road that goes out to the lighthouse because it is a private road on which there are several of the aforementioned mansions. There was a security guard posted at this spot to ensure that only the residents or senior citizens drive down this road. We stopped to talk with him a bit on our way out to be sure that we had correctly identified Taylor's house. He assured us that we were correct and went on to tell us that she almost never spends time there. He said that she seems to have received many death threats in the past while here and that may be part of why she doesn't come here very often. I had read somewhere that she likes to have 4th of July parties there for all her friends, but he told us that she hasn't even done that for the past couple of years. She spent $17 million to buy this home, which had sat vacant for 10 years before she purchased it, sunk another several million on renovating and now spends very little to no time there. So sad. And the place is massively huge. Would be very lonely to be there all by oneself. Oh Taylor, I am so sorry that you cannot enjoy this beautiful home with its beautiful view.
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| Taylor Swift's beautiful Rhode Island mansion |
We walked around the town a bit and ended up having some delicious sandwiches for lunch at a cute little ice cream shop/deli where we, of course, had some ice cream for dessert. We then got back in the car and made our way back to Providence to find our way to a spot to watch the WaterFire event.
WaterFire is an event that I had been told about by a native of Rhode Island at a work meeting a few years back and I always kept in the back of my mind as something we should try and attend when we made our way here. Fortunately (and this is one of those examples of God smiling down on us), it just so happened that the weekend that we chose to come here had a WaterFire event scheduled. We actually made our way in downtown Providence and found a parking spot that was quite close to the main event which was to begin at 6:15. We were a bit early (about 5pm) and so chose to walk to Providence Place mall to get something to drink before the event started. There is lots of water in Providence. From Wikipedia: "Providence is located at the head of Narragansett Bay, with the Providence River running into the bay through the center of the city, formed by the confluence of the Moshassuck and Woonasquatucket Rivers. The Waterplace Park amphitheater and riverwalks line the river's banks through downtown." So the walk to the mall was a walk along the canal where boats were loading up the braziers with wood for the event.
I am going to, once again, provide you with a quote from Wikipedia that I think describes this beautiful event quite well. "WaterFire is an award-winning sculpture by Barnaby Evans presented on the rivers of downtown Providence, RI. It was first created by Evans in 1994 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of First Night Providence, and has since become an annual public art phenomenon.
WaterFire is simultaneously a free public art installation, a performance work, an urban festival, a civic ritual, and a spiritual communal ceremony, well known nationally and internationally as a community arts event. WaterFire’s symbolism and interpretation is both inclusive and expansive - reflecting the recognition that individuals must act together to strengthen and preserve their community.
On WaterFire evenings, downtown Providence is transformed by eighty six anchored burning braziers (each with approximately 33 pieces of wood) that float just above the surface of the rivers that flow through Waterplace Park (the Woonasquatucket river) and the middle of downtown Providence (the Moshassuckand Providence rivers). The public is invited to come and walk the riverfront and enjoy the beauty of the flickering firelight, the fragrant scent of aromatic wood smoke, the changing silhouettes of the volunteer firetenders, and the music from around the world. Average attendance is 40,000 a night, ranging from 10,000 to 100,000." It is a beautiful, moving and wonderful event that I would highly recommend you attend if you ever find yourself in Providence, Rhode Island when an event is scheduled.
By this time we were both pretty tired but we had signed up to do an Escape Room at 9:30. This is another activity I would highly recommend if you are looking for something to do in place of a night out to the movies. We had a little time to kill so found a coffee shop/bar (New Harvest coffee roasters) where we set up our computers for about an hour in which I worked on the blog for yesterday's post and Kathi worked on homework. Shortly after 9, we folded up and set out to find our Escape Room.
After a 10 minute walk, we found Escape Rhode Island and walked up to the second floor where we greeted by our very enthusiastic hostess who laid out all the rules for us before escorting us (and it turned out it was just Kathi and I) to our room to begin our adventure called "Speakeasy". It was a fun room with great puzzles, but, alas and once again, we were foiled and did not solve all the puzzles in the allotted 60 minutes. I am starting to get a bit of a complex about this. This is probably the 6th escape room that I have done and I haven't made it out of ANY of them. All the ones that Kathi has done have been done with me so, she too, has never made it out of one!! We will keep trying, though, because they are fun.
Once done, we walked back to our car (which was close to both Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design), made our way "home" and promptly turned in.
Tomorrow, we ride the rails and go for a cliff walk.
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