But its my gateway to New England. The bluest of the blue states. The oldest continuously settled area in the continent. Well, leaving aside all the native settlements that we had to wipe out. And Mexico City and San Antonio which don't count because, um...Mexican.... So anyway, you can't hardly walk down the block around here without seeing some plaque about something that happened 300 years ago. Whatevs. That's back before electricity and football and girls in bikinis and barbecue and all the really cool stuff we have now. It may as well have never happened.
But New England's pretty, err, boasts spectacular scenery, and high temperatures up here reach the 80s. Austin's high today was 103 degrees. Done.
But first you have to get there and that means flying. Ugh. Anything short of First Class is BAD for the look. So you can imagine Southwest's Screaming Baby Special. Eh, I cashed in a frequent flyer ticket, so I had to travel with the non-equals. Must remember: sometimes you're not paying for the service; sometimes you're paying to avoid the rabble. As I tweeted, is this the airport or a methadone clinic? How can these people even afford to fly? Before 1970s airline deregulation, flying carried a cachet. People actually made a point to dress up for flights. The airlines couldn't compete on price (because the government regulated the price), so it competed on service. So airlines served fairly decent meals, the seats weren't 2/3 the size of the average Wrigley Field seat (designed in the late 1800s, that is), and most importantly, you weren't herded along like turkeys through the rendering plant before Thanksgiving. Now its like taking the bus. Much cheaper, and probably a better bargain, but so dispiriting. Two seats over, a woman who needed two seats had squeezed herself, her pink skull and crossbones scarf, and her floor to shoulder tattoos into one seat. The guy next to me snored and oozed over into my seat most of the flight. And on the connecting flight, the bleached out sixty-ish looking lady across the aisle and her three bloody marys did her best "on the way to Vegas on the cheap" imitation in between complaining about needing a smoke. I half expected to see a chicken run up and down the aisles at one point. On this particular flight, nearly every other adult was carrying a little baby. I didn't see any older children, only the handheld variety. Maybe they checked the older ones in baggage. One bright spot though was discovering the Providence airport. If you have to fly to Boston or anywhere nearby, by all means fly into Providence. Its a small airport that reminded me of Love Field or Hobby before they expanded. Its very near the freeway, and its extremely easy to get into and out of. So take Providence, not Logan.
OK, I rented the usual ostentatious convertible, so as to announce my presence with authority wherever I go, obvs. I got into downtown fairly easily. Like the rest of the weekend, gray skies covered Providence the whole day, but that kept the temperatures in the upper 70s. Perfect cruising weather. OK, not really. Upper 60s and sunny is cruising weather. The downtown area had a little more on the ball than I expected. A number of somewhat older high-rise office towers dominated the downtown area, with some relatively recent interlopers filling out the blocks. It appeared that a good bit of renovation was taking place, though much of the town proper retained the old brick streets. Providence basically sits around an old cove near where the Providence River widens into Narragansett Bay. The main residential, business, governmental, and financial areas lie on the west side, while Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design occupy the east bank and areas behind it. The city has somewhat developed a nice little riverfront area, though nothing commercial to speak of. That sets it apart from the many cities and towns that have turned river frontage into prime tourist and entertainment areas. Providence's is nice, but not congested or crass. The town is bigger than I thought, though by no means a major city.
After arriving and settling in to my hotel, I went for a lengthy run. I ran over to the State Capitol, a white stone edifice that looks like most American state capitols, on a high overlook near the turn in the river. Texas has the best state capitol building by far (though I like Mississippi's marble-dominant capitol as well). A huge mall, replete with all the name stores, sits very nearby. From there I crossed the river and ran along the lengthy Main Street that parallels it. This allowed me to run through the Roger Williams National Memorial Park, a National Park Service facility. One of the smallest I've ever encountered. I'll explain about him in a bit, but the Park was a long rectangular preserve with a rolling lawn surrounded by native trees. From there I made my way to the Brown University campus as daylight began receding. Its much smaller than the Harvard campus, but no less intriguing. The campus certainly screams "Ivy League" at every turn. Plaques honoring classes graduating more than a century ago pop up at every turn. Stone, dark red brick, and old Federal style buildings all appear on campus. It also includes several odd sculptures, one of which, that I took as kids playing Ring Around the Rosie, looked like one of those foil figurines people make at Freebirds. Why doesn't that count as art too? The campus was crawling with kids and their parents, signifying this must be "move in" weekend. I guess when parents are paying Ivy League tuition, they get a greater role in the whole educational process. More on that later too. My run took me past the amazing Brown athletic facilities, all of which appeared to have been built within the last five years. I peeked in the athletic department weight room. It featured all kinds of modern equipment, but didn't feature much in the way of size. I can imagine the football team squeezing in, or having to lift in shifts. That doesn't happen in major colleges.
All in all I ran for an hour and a quarter, finally returning to the hotel around 8:00 to get cleaned up and find a place to eat where I could enjoy a good meal and watch the LSU-TCU game. I closed the night, as I try to do every vacation, by having an excellent meal. Saturday night I dined at the nearby Circe Restaurant. It was a little bit douche, but acceptably so. I enjoyed a nice meal including a good arugula salad with strawberries, and an excellent sirloin cut into small pieces and spread over garlic spinach and truffled mashed potatoes. I was enjoying the meal until some Real Housewives of New Jersey type women plopped down next to me, with their meathead, Jersey Shore boyfriends following thereafter. Time to pay and get out.
I woke up this morning, Sunday, sore all over but listening to a pretty good thunderstorm outside. I'd planned to attend services at the First Baptist Church in America, just across the river, before continuing to explore Providence. It was touch and go, but the rain finally stopped in time for me to walk over and be just a couple of minutes late. The aforementioned Roger Williams founded this church, in this building, in 1638. Like many Protestant churches, this one resembled a somewhat modest, archetypal New England town church. But it was much larger than just the usual church in the town square. Consistent with those modest attitudes, it featured only one stained glass window, which was covered, but otherwise was relatively devoid of ornamentation (except for the ornate, Irish crystal chandelier, prominently displayed at the sanctuary's center). The old building lacked air conditioning; having dressed for church, and having beaten it over there, I basically sweat like a lawyer in church (I've been waiting all day to write that line...ha!) for the first 30 minutes. Impressive. They had fans blowing and all the windows open, but it didn't help much. OK. Roger Williams. This will leave out a lot, but, he was an English preacher fed up with the government's authority over and involvement with organized religious worship and practices. He came to Massachusetts hoping to break free of the Church of England, but found the colonial government under the Puritans just as objectionable. Eventually he took refuge in present day Rhode Island, reached agreements with the local Indian tribes, and opened the area for everyone as a refuge for people fleeing religious intolerance. His motto, and his church's even today, was "Soul Liberty." He eventually secured a Royal charter for his Rhode Island colony, which later became a state. This church sadly had scant attendance, but maybe that owed to the holiday weekend. The preacher was enthusiastic, and based on his accent I'd guess he was from Kentucky or West Virginia. Most importantly, and rarely now, he actually preached about something from the Bible. As opposed to the megachurch, modern day, "everything is beautiful," cotton candy preaching that could double as a self-help video. The sermon wasn't especially prescriptive, but it dealt with real issues honestly. And others among the congregation were friendly and welcoming. I enjoyed it.
I spent the rest of the day exploring, after I changed back at the hotel. In addition to covering Brown and the RISD campus a little more closely, I walked on to Benefit Street, an area featuring really magnificent old homes from the late 1700s, lining either side of a tree canopy lined street, with red brick sidewalks on either side. I also walked down to the old port area (Fox Point) and the bohemian Wickenden Street neighborhood. Vintage shops, coffee shops, etc. Very evocative of the old Shop the Curve before the yuppies took over the Montrose. Back at Brown U, they were readying the main quad for a Presidential Welcoming ceremony and convocation. A brass band set up shop near the front, and folding chairs covered the whole lawn, just so the President could welcome the incoming freshman class. Yeah, whatever. You know how the University of Texas welcomed me to school? Some traffic guard yelled at my dad, I had to stand in about 35 lines in the heat and deal with surly employees at each one, and my mom screamed out "I want to know where the girls are" the moment the elevator doors opened in my dorm. Peter Flawn didn't give me a hearty handshake and a speech. I think they were really just celebrating the fact they were all rich enough to send their kid to Brown. I also made it over to Thayer Street, Brown's version of the Drag in Austin, or Highland Road at LSU or University Avenue at Florida. Lots of action, with restaurants, stores, a few bars. I ate lunch at a Mediterranean place, Kartabar, which was family owned. Had a pretty good grilled tuna with sun dried tomatoes, spinach, and rice.
After changing clothes, I went over to the Federal Hill section of town. Imagine a bunch of fat guys with big noses, silk shirts, thinning hair, and coke bottle glasses with their bleached out, top heavy, overly made up wives. That's Federal Hill. Like the Sopranos auditions come to life. Uh, it was a little Italian. Much more so than Little Italy in New York. For instance, I saw a lot of actual Italians. I went into or saw several Italian family owned stores and groceries. And it spanned a much longer distance than the now fake Little Italy.
Then I took a shower and walked to dinner at Mill's Tavern, rated as one of Providence's best restaurants. It was very woody inside, very dark and "taverny." I had a really excellent roasted duck breast and blackberry jam with brown rice, and lettuces with plum vinaigrette, feta, and toasted almond to start. Best of all, no obnoxious reality star types invading my personal space. I closed the evening by going to see Blue Jasmine, Woody Allen's new movie, at the historic Avon Theater on Thayer Street. The Avon is one of those old one screen theatres that mostly died out in the 1960s when the multiplex first appeared. A few managed to survive near college campuses, featuring independent or foreign movies. Or Woody Allen. The movie was excellent, albeit bleak, though I enjoyed actually going to see a new movie.
OK, gotta stop here.
Tomorrow-on to Newport!
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