The Great End of Summer Road Trip - Part 3

So with sticker shock behind us from New York tolls and a brief stop in Connecticut for a little seashore adventure, it's time to knock off the last of the three states remaining on out travel map of the Northeast - Rhode Island.

One of the toughest things about RV-ing in Rhode Island is due to the state's size. It's so small that there are not a lot of campgrounds in the state which can accommodate a motorhome of our size that also have the amenities we like to have when traveling. Timing of reservations also comes into play if your stay is going to occur on any given weekend during the last few days of summer vacation.

And while the state's small size makes it easy to get from one area to another, being close to places you want to visit is always a plus.

So we were fortunate to find a campground just about 20 minutes away from the Newport area, given our interest was in visiting some Newport mansions. A few years back Barbara and I took a trip to Asheville, NC to tour the famous Vanderbilt estate of Biltmore (a must-see destination, btw), so naturally we wanted to see how the Vanderbilt's spent their summer months in Newport, RI.

There are Newpost mansion tour deals to be had, where you can tour the Vanderbilt mansion called The Breakers, then add one, two or more other Newport mansions for a discounted price. We opted for the three mansion deal based on time allotted during our 3-day stay in the area.

The Breakers is as stunningly opulent as Biltmore is in typically ostentatious in true Vanderbilt style, but is considerably smaller. It's also nicely preserved with each room still containing original artwork and furniture that gives you some idea of the lifestyle the ultra-rich of that era lived. Mr. Vanderbilt's marble bathtub could float a small fleet of ships in it, and was capable of providing both hot and cold running fresh water or sea water as the master desired. Very weird seeing 4 faucets feeding a tub.

The Breakers from a side view. The landscaping was beautiful even with the heat of the summer.

 

A few rooms had gold leaf accents, while one room had titanium accents! The whole mansion screamed – MONEY! Interestingly, the view of the sea from the property was not as good as the next mansion on our list.

Rosecliff was recommended by my brother, Doug, as a must-see mansion while in Newport. His recommendation was based on his love of the movie, 'The Great Gatsby', which used Rosecliff as the location for the film. While visually stunning, the movie itself was a dud.

So was Rosecliff.

The building itself was not nearly as opulent as The Breakers was, and only the first floor contained any furniture set up the way the owners originally had. The second floor was a not-very-interesting museum of Newport war history. While the ballroom and patio are used today for wedding receptions and other social functions, both are bare. About the only redeeming value to the mansion are the grounds. The sea-side lawn and view of the harbor are the best feature of the home. And Arnold Swarzenegger fans will notice the exterior as being in the opening sequence of his movie 'True Lies'.

Beautiful exterior, but a disappointing tour

 

Other than that, Rosecliff was pretty – meh.

Our final museum wasn't a building at all; it was the Green Animals Topiary Garden well away from Newport proper. It is one of the few remaining topiary gardens left in the U.S., and if you love gardens, it's a great place to visit. The designs are pretty well done, the flowers and tress were very colorful, and a light sea breeze kept the temperatures in the comfortable range even though we were outdoors.

They claim it's a bear, but I swear I'm being attacked by a frog!

 

As we were leaving, Barbara and I were discussing our museum tour and lamented our experience at Rosecliff. One of the guides / docents at the garden overheard us and agreed wholeheartedly with our assessment. She told us to wait, went into a building, and came out with two free passes to any mansion good for a year. While we were leaving the next day and couldn't use them ourselves, we were going to be visiting a classmate of Barbara's at our next stop nearby, so we accepted the tickets.

Interestingly enough, despite it's small size, we could have spent a couple of more days doing the Newport thing, but frankly, the park we were staying at didn't have a pool, and we had other places to be to keep to our itinerary.

A little bit of RV traveling information that usually doesn't affect us is that with so few miles between destinations, and strict check-out and check-in times at northeast campgrounds, we had to leave at the latest times possible, stop in a rest area and sit around for an hour or two with the generator running in order to keep cool, then head to our next campground to check in. But that's the beauty of living in a motorhome where the interior is ALWAYS conditioned as long as you've got fuel to run your generator.

Our next destination on the Great End of Summer Road Trip is a strange one given that both Barbara and I grew up in Massachusetts. Keep an eye out for the next installment in Parental Parolees!