Click on a photo to enlarge it.
It took us one hour to drive 17 miles to get out of Newark and to a scenic overlook for our last views of New York. We drove through New York State
and into Connecticut where we found a covered bridge and decided to stay for the night.
Unfortunately, some youths turned up in a car and decided to pee up against the side of our motor home!! They ran off. Then another car turns up
and some people went onto the bridge and started throwing heavy rocks from the bridge into the river. So we decided that a Wal-Mart car park would
be safer except that we drove around for 2 hours trying to find it!
In the end we gave up and found a supermarket car park in Norwich where we parked up at 1am.
The next morning two warning lights stayed on when we started up Winnie - the parking brake light and the battery light. We did a test on a steep
hill in neutral to test the brake which held and the battery connections all seemed to be OK. We asked around and found that Wood's electric was
the best place to go and it was just around the corner from where we had parked up last night.
Jim, the owner, was a really nice man and it didn't take him long to take a look and tell us that our alternator had given up the ghost. Normally,
they only last for 100,000 miles and ours had lasted 130,000. So we could hardly complain!
But it was still a blow when he told us that he could repair ours for under $200 or we could get a new one for around $270. Our costs were mounting
up seeing as we'd only just been into a garage and paid $52 for a hose to be tightened.
Jim couldn't get us a new one, we would have to go to another place for that but he got us a deal with them to charge less for the labour. But it
was still going to be $70 to $80 more. He could repair our old one but he couldn't fit us in until Friday, two days away.
We had another decision to make and Jim did everything he could to tell us what we needed to know to make that decision, even when it meant that he
would lose business. So we decided to stick to honest Jim along with his family business - his wife, Barbara, works in the office, his son, Roy, is
a mechanic and his son's girlfriend, Hazel, works in the office too. We managed to keep them entertained with our travel stories - well we have
quite a few by now!
We couldn't drive anywhere as our battery wouldn't recharge so we drove around the corner to the supermarket car park again and had a day off!
We took Winnie in on Friday and after 2 hours Jim told us that he'd had to put a new one in anyway because our old one had been ruined by an oil
leak which had probably happened 9 months ago and it had taken that long to burn out. He also gave us an alternator with a higher voltage. But he
still charged us the original price because " a deal's a deal". That was really nice of him and we were very grateful.
So with a brand new alternator we drove off and found that the Wal-Mart really does exist and did some shopping. Then we drove into Rhode Island,
stopped off at a visitor centre for info and drove down to Newport where the other half live! By the 1880s, Newport was one of the great seaside
resorts affording lavish elegance to everyone in high society who had a summer "cottage" built.
We weren't allowed to stay at the Wal-Mart so we found another shopping mall car park where we could park overnight. It rained all night and
morning so we didn't set off until the afternoon. Newport is a very touristy area and there was a lot of traffic. We spent one hour at the library
and then found a spot on the coastal road near Brenton Point State Park.
On Sunday we got up early and walked along the 3 mile coastal path which took us past a number of mansions. The Breakers was built in 1895 and is
a National Historic Landmark as are many of the mansions. Rosecliff was built in 1902 and Cole Porter was a frequent visitor composing and playing
the piano in an upstairs sitting room.
After the coast walk we walked along Bellevue avenue to see more mansions.
Belcourt Castle was built between 1891 and 1894 for Oliver Belmont who inherited $60 million in 1890. He married the indomitable Alva Vanderbilt
in 1896.
Marble House was built in 1892 and cost a reported 11 million dollars. It was Alva Vanderbilt's grand stage in competition with Mrs Astor as a
society hostess and later became the platform for her "Votes for Women" campaign.
We went to the wharf where there was an Irish festival going on but we just wanted to see the waterfront and then we meandered around the
backstreets looking at various historic buildings. We saw the oldest US tavern and had a glimpse of the Tennis Hall of Fame where the US Open
started in 1881 before being moved to New York.
After a drive to Fort Adams we went back to Brenton Point State Park where there were lots of people flying all types of kites and then went back
to the same spot we parked at last night. Unfortunately we got woken up at 2-30 am by the local police who told us we weren't allowed to park there
but told us to park up at Fort Adams which we did. Couldn't they have told us a bit earlier??
