To finish off the trip

September 5, 2012...

We left Boston for Tiverton, Rhode Island to visit with our friends John and Jon from New Orleans who rent a summer place overlooking Tiverton Harbor.  Tiverton is a smallish place, in Rhode Island and quite country.  It's north of rich Little Compton and not pretentious.  The place where the neighbor goes out quahoging and brings back littlenecks for you, where the local center has a lobster roll place, but quaint enough that little New England cruise vessels actually make it into the harbor.  Having a view of Mt Hope and Mt Hope Bridge in the distance helps.  

We were rained in a day by the remnants of hurricane Isaac, but that made for fun, if sometimes damp, porch sitting with a good book and glass of wine.  We enjoyed some Spanish bierzo from Galicia and a lovely French burgundy.  It went with the littlenecks from the owner of the next dock whose boat our host had bailed out after the storm.  Roasted on the grille...mmmm.

We ate lots of corn from the local farmers, lovely tomatoes, and grilled vegetables. Simple.

Lunch one day with friend Elaine as well at the Stone Harbor viewing Mt Hope Bay at the north end of Tiverton was fun.  Sitting outside in the sun, enjoying the New England clam chowder and for John the fish and chips.  Very simple, very good.  And very nice wines to go with.

Then we headed into Bristol, just across the bridge for four nights with Elaine and John's 50th high school reunion from Barrington High School.  Lots of fun with a party at a house he had played in as a child (the owner says the tables for John's old friend's electric trains are still in the attic 55 years later).  The house overlooks the Barrington River with its boats and reed grass, very attractive as the sun goes down.   The following evening we had the big dinner dance at the Rhode Island Country Club on Nayatt Road overlooking Narragansett Bay.  Lovely view and pleasant food.  Of course there was great company, friends of 50 years ago with whom we still correspond.

The end of the trip was a night with brother Andrew and Karen in Fairfield, with an afternoon at Philip Johnson's Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut.  John and Ben found it sparse but fascinating, worth a visit.  John thinks Johnson is not among America's first rank of architects, too much a copyist of the world of Mies van der Rohe, who now seems to be so cold and square for our mellower tastes.  Very fashionable when we were growing up, 50 years ago, but now seems dated and strange.