As with every stop we make, we left memories in Newport...memories of wonderful dinners at very special restaurants. Hollie, Meredith, and Yvonne asked a local lady to recommend a good restaurant, and the lady walked with them to a place called "Fluke". The local lady ate at a table close to theirs, and left before Hollie, Meredith and Yvonne. When they asked for their bill, Hollie's group was told that the lady at the other table had paid it...about $200, including tip!
After dinner a group of students played cards in the hotel lobby for a while, and then some of them located a yet-undiscovered area of our fantastic hotel and decided to try out the racketball court. Knowing nothing about actual racketball, they invented a game they called racketball-dodgeball. Apparently there was more "racket" than "dodging" judging from the new bruises that have appeared this morning!
Before leaving the hotel, I did a little exploring on my own. I went to the top floor and managed to find a few windows that gave great views of different areas of Newport. So many nice places to explore! We could have used much more time here...but there are other things to see...more adventures ahead.
As we were reluctantly preparing to leave our luxurious hotel, Jessica boarded our bus for the morning briefing. She gave credit to "Doppler Duke" for scheduling the during-the-night rainfall. She went over the day's plan, and said we would be returning to the "Fleabag Hotel" in Secaucus tonight, which would be quite a come down from the luxury hotel we had in Newport. The Secaucus hotel is the same one we stayed in on Wednesday night, and it was far from "fleabag" status. Jessica has obviously not stayed in some of the places I have stayed in!
Before officially leaving Newport we stopped and toured the Breakers. We were given headsets for our tour, which were very helpful. The "cottage" (the Vanderbilt's expression, not mine) was fascinating and almost impossible to believe that people actually lived in such opulence. We could not take photos inside, but as soon as the tour was over, we all went out on the grounds for photos of the ocean view.
Being in the yard of the mansion was not quite good enough for some students, so they climbed the fence to get down to the water's edge. To convince some of the girls to scale the fence, I overheard one of the boys encouraging them by saying, "Just climb and jump. All of your friends are here to catch you if you fall." Comforting?
However, when it was time to leave, they had to crawl back over the fence and pose for a group picture.
The adult group had an excellent tour guide, but the students had a young man to guide them whose name was Jeremiah P. Poope. What is not to like about a guy who is entertaining, informative, and proudly wears the Poope name? After a posed picture with Jeremiah, they took selfies, and tonight Jetemiah has many new Facebook friends from Alabama.
I just thought we were in a highway parking lot the other day. Traffic leaving Boston was unreal. In two hours we had covered only 41 miles! Finally the "powers that be" decided it would be wise to pull off and stop at a mall food court so everyone could get something to eat. We got off the bus with no idea where we were, but we could see food! Since we were all curious about our location, I walked past a police officer and asked him where we were. I can't be positive, because I don't translate Bostonian dialect very well, but I think we were in a place called Attleborough, MA.
With at least four hours of driving ahead of us, I will try to post now so no one at home will think we have jumped off the edge of the earth. We are fine...currently watching a movie while we roll on the miles.
All in all, it has been another wonderful day. Tonight when we will be back in Secaucus, and after a good night's sleep we continue our adventure. Tomorrow we begin three days in New York City
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