Day Trip to Rhode Island

As the leaves outside my window begin to turn fiery orange, it's a sudden reminder that winter is once again fast approaching. Meaning it's almost time to be stuck indoors for the following 5 months! DX

Which means... I have to get as much traveling in as possible before that first snowfall hits!

One place on my list of locations to explore was Rhode Island.

One neat thing about living on the East Coast is that all the neighboring states are super accessible for day or weekend trips. Providence, Rhode Island, is only about an hour drive from Boston, so I figured that would be an easy place to check out. I had heard about this "WaterFire" event that the city holds every few weeks, so I planned the trip to line up with that.

Since we probably wouldn't be exploring Rhode Island much after this, I added 2 more stops to our trip, so the final itinerary came out as follows :

1. Start by visiting Blithewold (Mansion, Gardens, and Arboretum)
2. After lunch walk along a bit of the Newport Cliffwalk
3. Lastly, grab dinner and check out WaterFire in Providence
   

Stop #1 - Blithewold Mansion, Gardens, and Arboretum

Blithewold is a 33-acre estate first purchased in 1896 as a summer getaway home.

The wife began cultivating gardens all over the estate, and her daughter continued building up the gardens.

When the daughter passed away in 1976, she donated the estate to the public. Now it's a sort of park where people are encouraged to come, relax, and feel inspired.

There are many small gardens, like the Bamboo Grove, Rose Garden, Water Garden, etc.

Bamboo Grove, just waiting for someone's photo op

Basically, the place is filled with gorgeous backdrops for fun portraits! :D

The inside of the mansion is set up like a museum, so you can take a peek through time to see what the place might have looked like in it's original set up.

One-of-a-kind appliances, that's for sure.

Lovely place. Next we headed to Newport to see even more mansions!

Stop #2 - Newport Cliffwalk

In the city of Newport, there's a lovely walk along the rocky shoreline that offers some great views of some really impressive mansions.

Somebody's gazebo... probably un-usable due to the constant stream of tourist walking 5 feet behind them??

I have no idea if anyone actually lives in these places (I assume so) or if they are museums now, but tons of people were out and about to take turns gawking at the amazing structures.

people LOVE giant buildings

Good afternoon Mr... uh... *checks google* double crested cormorant !

Again, lots of really great photo op spots!

Stop #3 - Waterfire in Providence

Finally it was time for the final stop!

Providence!

We arrived shortly before sunset, so we explored around a bit until we got hungry enough for dinner.

Yummmm

Yay! Now it's dark and we can go see the Waterfire thing!

Judging by the name of the event, you can assume it has something to do with fire and water. Basically it's a bunch of fires being lit along the river that runs through downtown Providence.

It doesn't sound that interesting when described, but it's a really unique and cool atmosphere!

There's also music being played along the water, with lots of places to sit and listen / watch.

You can also pay $5 to throw glowy blue orbs into the water.

It was very fun! We were there during a "partial lighting", and I have no idea what would be different during the full lighting, but I would be down to check it out again to find out. :)