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Old Dude paying a visit to H.P. Lovecraft
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For many moons now, Ms. B. and I had planned to attend a
Dark Shadows gathering at
Seaview Terrace in
Newport, RI, this weekend, but a while back, event organizer
Bob Issel regretfully announced that, due to HBO using the mansion as a
staging area for the series
Gilded Age, and their shooting schedule running overtime, the
Dark Shadows event would have to be postponed. Well, boo. We had
nonrefundable plane tickets, so we decided there was nothing for it but to spend
the long weekend in the Providence area anyhow.
Friday, November 15, 2024
These days, the only flights you can get at reasonable prices are the ones
that depart for your destination before the ass-crack of dawn and return you
home barely in time to catch the Late-Late Show. Brugger and I hit the road
for
Greensboro's Piedmont Triad International Airport well before
sun-up this morning, bound for Providence by way of Detroit on
Delta Airlines. Fortunately, our flights went off without a hitch, and
we arrived at
Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport a good
half-hour early. Once we'd retrieved our bags, we picked up our rental car and
went on a desperate quest for lunch, for the Great Starvation was upon us. We
found acceptable fare — fish & chips for the Old Dude, mac & cheese
for Brugger — at a little Irish pub called
Sullivan's Publick House in Pawtucket, not far from our lodgings. Upon checking my geocaching
app to see if any caches lurked nearby, I discovered there was one just across
the street! Needless to say, I zoomed straight over and made quick work of it.
The only hitch of the day came when we arrived at our AirB&B in Pawtucket.
Check-in time was 2:00 p.m., and we arrived at 2:45 p.m., only to find the
place hadn't been cleaned. We immediately messaged our host, who figured there
must have been some miscommunication with AirB&B regarding the timing, so
he saw to it that everything was promptly set right. We planned to head into
Providence proper anyway, and it wasn't very long before he let us know
everything had been taken care of. Yay! This was a disconcerting greeting, to
say the least, but we were pleased that our host rectified the situation
before it could become a serious issue.
For our part, we made our way southward to
Swan Point Cemetery, to the resting place of
H.P. Lovecraft, which I figured I ought to
visit at least once in this lifetime. Some thoughtful geocacher had designated
the grave a virtual cache (a cache with no physical container; instead of
signing a log, you answer questions about the specific location). Upon our
arrival, we discovered a passel of turkeys madly running about the graves,
perhaps hoping to have the place renamed "Turkey Point." Probably not gonna
happen.
Once done, we made our way into downtown Providence, where I led Kim on a
little tour of the area where
NecronomiCon 2024
had been held a few months ago. Our first destination was
Reiners Bar & Game Room at the
Graduate (formerly the Biltmore) Hotel. It's a lovely bar, and their dirty gin martini rocked. After a little
roaming around, we drove back to Pawtucket, where we settled on
Rasoi Indian
Restaurant for dinner. Since I've consumed more than my share of dead critter
recently, I decided on the Vegetable Biryani, which was good, but I sure did
miss the lamb, which is my preferred protein in the dish.
I found one more cache on our way back to our AirB&B, which — true to his
word — our host had thoroughly cleaned and otherwise prepared it for us as it
should have been.
And now, exhaustion sets in. At least this kind of exhaustion, unlike the
brand of exhaustion we've been otherwise suffering lately, is quite welcome.
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Turkeys run wild at Swan Point Cemetery
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Providence by night
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Saturday, November 16, 2024
Our B&B is generally comfortable, the bed in particular, but the walls
are thin, and some of the noises from the surrounding environment are a bit
more than one might care to hear in the middle of the night. Still, when I
woke up this morning, I felt generally well-rested, for which I was glad, as
we had a busy day of winging it planned — well, winging it but for a highly
anticipated lunch appointment with a certain New Englander of our
acquaintance.
Ms. B. needed a new computer mouse, so we set out about ten o'clock and picked
up a mouse at a Staples just down the way. Then we drove over to nearby
Benefit Street, specifically to visit number 135, which served as the
inspiration for H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shunned House" (1924). The house was
built in 1763 by Stephen Harris and owned by John Mawney, for whom it is
named. Lovecraft's connection with the house came by way of his Aunt Lillian
Clark, who lived there from 1919 to 1920.
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135 Benefit Street: H.P. Lovecraft's "Shunned House"
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We took some photos of the house and wandered around Benefit Street,
where I also claimed a very cool virtual cache in the graveyard of the nearby
Episcopal church. Kimberly and I both loved the atmosphere of the
neighborhood, especially since many houses were still decorated for Fall
and/or Halloween. A few already had Christmas decorations up.
From there, we proceeded down to Wickenden Street, near
Brown University, so Ms. B. could fit in some shopping and I — yes, you guessed it — some
geocaching. We both ended up very pleased with the results of our respective
endeavors.
A little before 1:00 p.m., we headed back into downtown, where we met longtime
friend and fellow writer,
Tony Tremblay, who so kindly drove two and a
half hours just to visit with us. We had settled in advance on dining at
Durk's Bar-B-Q, where we now enjoyed a lengthy lunch and some great conversation. Then we
migrated a short distance up the road to have drinks at
110 Grill, which I'd enjoyed visiting when I was here back in August for NecronomiCon.
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A portion of the graveyard behind the Episcopal Church
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Mr. T., Old Dude, Nice Lady
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Once we had bid Tony a fond farewell, Brugger fit in a little more shopping at
Providence Place Mall. We then decided to head back toward Wickenden Street, as it offered lots of
options for drinking, dining, and geocaching. We had hoped to hit a coffee
shop for a shot of caffeine, but the couple we found had just closed for the
day. So we drowned our coffee woes by way of a Chardonnay for the lady and an
Old Fashioned for the Old Dude at a nice little joint called
The Point Tavern. Once done, it was still a hair too early for dinner, so we took a nice
stroll out to the pedestrian bridge over the Providence River, where I snagged
a couple of more caches. Then we walked back and found a fine dinner at
Champa Thai/Laotian
restaurant.
That was about all we had in us for the evening, and Kim had some work to
catch up on, so we returned to our lodgings, where Kim worked and I blogged.
Till tomorrow, friends...
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Another beautiful evening in Providence, viewed from the pedestrian
bridge over the Providence River
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Sunday, November 17, 2024
Brugger and I have noticed over the past couple of days that, wherever you go
in Providence, the air is filled with the distinctive aroma of pot smoke, even
when you're in a car. Mind you, this is not a complaint.
Our target
this morning was Newport, about 45 minutes south of Providence. As mentioned
previously, our original plan for this trip had been to attend a
Dark Shadows gathering at Seaview Terrace, but HBO's
filming schedule squashed that event. Since neither Ms. B. nor I have been to
the house before, we decided to make our way to it and at least check out the
exterior. So, we set our sights on the Ruggles Avenue address and headed out
fairly early this morning. Sure enough, the property was closed off to visitors,
but there are several areas where one can take decent photos, and so... many
photos I took. I hope we'll manage to attend some future DS event there and can
look forward to visiting the interior whenever that might happen.
After roaming about Seaview for a while, we headed into Newport proper. Ms. B.
needed to find a CVS, so that we did, and once she'd accomplished her mission,
it was lunchtime. We happened to see
La Forge Casino Restaurant
just across the street from the pharmacy, so we decided to give it a try. We
both had burgers, which were pretty good, and I had a bloody mary, which was
very good.
After that, we needed some exercise, so we set our sights on the
Cliff Walk
along Newport's eastern coastline. There was easy access at the end of Ruggles
Avenue, near Seaview, so we parked there and started walking northward. A
short distance on, we arrived at the clusters of rocks in the ocean that
appear in the
Dark Shadows opening titles. Several geocaches hid
along the walkway, and I managed to claim the ones along our route. We hoofed
it for several miles, so I figured that
maybe we managed to work off a
french fry or two from lunch.
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Some of the rocks that appear in the opening titles of
Dark Shadows, seen from the Cliff Walk
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Old Dude and Ms. B. not quite on the rocks but still cool. Sort of.
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One of the many mansions in Newport's Gilded Age area
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Salve Regina University uses many of the Gilded Age mansions for their
academic and administrative buildings as well as student housing
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But wait! Oh, no! Ms. B. wanted to check out a local winery/brewery not too
far away, so after our walk, we ventured up the road to
Newport Vineyards & Restaurant, where we likely undid any calorie loss from our walk. She had a Riesling,
which, unfortunately, she found unimpressive. Rather than wine, I sampled one
of their IPAs, which was quite good, though — like so many items in the area —
way overpriced for what you actually get.
Heavens! We still had plenty of time to kill before our evening dinner
reservation, so we ventured to the southeast end of the peninsula and found an
interesting beach (and several geocaches). While I hunted caches, Ms. B.
wandered the beach to hunt intriguing shells. We both found what we sought.
This activity took us till about 4:00 p.m., and since we had a 5:30 dinner
reservation at the
Black Pearl
restaurant (whose exterior doubled for the
Blue Whale bar in
Dark Shadows), we headed in the direction of the waterfront district to see what kind of
trouble we might get into there.
As it turned out, a couple of Adventure Lab caches awaited us, one of which
led to a few locations used in the movie Hocus Pocus 2, which both Ms. B. and I find fun to watch. The second AL took us on a
little walking tour of the area, which we enjoyed.
Come dinnertime, we wandered over to Black Pearl, a cozy and
atmospheric nautical-themed restaurant — very apt for the Blue Whale's
real-life counterpart. We considered the numbers in the menu's price column
mighty high, but we had counted on this and bit the bullet. Ms. B. had shrimp
& pasta, which — rather sadly — didn't quite meet her expectations,
especially since it's a dish she's very fond of. I had shrimp cocktail and
Clams Casino, both of which were excellent, but I'd say that, for the price,
the quantity came up a bit short. Still, for something like this, we figured
we were paying for the experience as much as the food, and we did
very much enjoy the experience.
Just down the way, we'd seen an Italian place that served gelato, and since we
both love gelato... that is where we ended up.
Giusto was
its name, and yeah, that was some mighty fine gelato.
After a satisfying day and evening of mostly winging it, we made our way back
to our Pawtucket lodgings, where we repeated last night's procedure: Ms. B.
got some work done, and I blogged.
Try not to breathe too much of that pot smoke out there!
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Looking down Newport's Thames Street
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The Oliver Hazard Perry, docked in Newport
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The Black Pearl Restaurant, a.k.a. The Blue Whale in Dark Shadows
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Old Dude and a lovely ale, spinning Dark Shadows yarns for the
nice lady
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Monday, November 18, 2024
"On the far horizon were the open countryside’s purple slopes. Against these,
some two miles away, rose the spectral hump of Federal Hill, bristling with
huddled roofs and steeples whose remote outlines wavered mysteriously, taking
fantastic forms as the smoke of the city swirled up and enmeshed them."
—H.P. Lovecraft, "The Haunter of the Dark"
On our last day in Providence,
we still had some time to explore because we needed to check out of our
AirB&B by 10:00 a.m., and our flight didn't depart until 7:20 p.m. Once
we had fulfilled our clean-up duties and checked out from our lodgings,
Brugger and I drove over to Federal Hill, first to claim a couple of caches
— one being another stage of the
Hocus Pocus 2 Adventure Lab cache (nothing more
than a Walgreen's store, which had been done up for the film). Then I got it
into my head that we should find the location of the long-demolished
St. John's Catholic Church, which had served as the inspiration for
the
Starry Wisdom Church in "The Haunter of the Dark," which is
perhaps my favorite H.P. Lovecraft story. This endeavor proved not at
all difficult because, once I determined its actual address (at Atwells and
Sutton Street), we found
St. John's Park and an inlaid panel in
the sidewalk that gave a brief history of the church. It's been over thirty
years since the building was demolished, but I can't say I didn't feel
touched by the "Shadow From the Steeple," to use the title of Robert Bloch's
follow-up story...
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Brugger in St. John's Park, the site of the old church that served as
HPL's inspiration for the setting
of "The Haunter of the Dark"
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Old Dude hanging with Roger Williams, founder of
The First
Baptist Church
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We found lunch at a little Italian grocer/eatery called
Roma
which was
so Italian it felt more like being back in the boot
than in Providence, Rhode Island. A Caprese chicken sandwich for Ms. B.
and a pork loin sandwich with grilled onions and provolone
per me, both excellent.
There was a virtual geocache at Providence's
First Baptist Church,
the very first Baptist church in the United States, established
by Roger Williams in 1638; the present building was constructed in
1774–1775. Back in August, the opening ceremonies for NecronomiCon took
place at the church, though I did not go after the virtual at the time
because, after the festivities that day, the skies opened up and dumped a
big old gullywasher upon us mere mortals.
With a good bit of time still to kill before hauling ourselves to the
airport, we parked ourselves at
Murphy's Tavern
downtown, where the
Lovecraft Ezine
guys and I had several times parked ourselves and sank all manner of
drinks during NecronomiCon downtimes. Brugger and I sank some fine spirits
here, and I provided her with a few shivers by reading to her the first
few paragraphs of Lovecraft's "Haunter of the Dark," which described the
locations we had visited today as they appeared back in his day.
And then it was off to
PVD. After returning our rental car, we checked in and settled
ourselves at the airport's
Providence Provisions restaurant (which I had seen a lot of back in August when I was
stuck at the airport for two days) and fortified ourselves with a decent
meal. Thankfully, this trip, our two flights were not only on time but
early, so instead of 2:00 a.m., we arrived home at a little after 1:00
a.m.
For a trip that turned out to be something altogether different than what
we originally anticipated, this one goes into our personal annals as one
of our most enjoyable ventures — other than the fact Brugger was plagued
by a lingering cough even after she'd gotten over the previous week's
cold. Now, given the direction this country has taken, who knows if she
and I will have the resources to indulge in such excellent outings as this
in the coming days; hell, if she loses her medical insurance, thanks to at
least half the country's fierce and foolish battle against any kind of
universal health coverage, almost every penny that we've previously been
able to pump into the economy will be going straight to healthcare. If
this kind of thing is what "making America great" means to you, then you
can go get fucked by an orangutan, and thank you very much.
Adieu,
until next time.
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Our last round in Providence, at Murphy's Tavern
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