The quick summary of Newport, RI is that (1) it has at least one very kind, outgoing, interesting resident (2) there are a LOT of daffodils in the spring (3) someone thought that fake two dimensional dogs would be a good idea, but they were probably wrong (4) the cliff walk has great natural oceany beauty on one side and more gimongous mansions than you can shake a stick at on the other side (5) they run a little low on bagels. Team morale was boosted by the local flora and encounter with said Newport resident, but somewhat dampened by tired feet and semi-endless streets in suburbs on steroids.

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First Officer's Log, 080417.

"Hey, bunnydragon, let's do this task!"
"Umm, which?"
"It's the" blah blah blah "doesn't that sound fun?"
"Umm... okay?"

So there I am, trying to figure out what the heck this would be like. Buses are not exactly my thing. Trains? Yes. Buses? Enhhhhh. But rongorongo insisted on buses, since they have a different human element than trains: true. And really, one of the things I like about certain praxii is the inclusion of the human element. Buses it is then.

Only..... to where? If we lived in the middle of nowhere, it'd be interesting to take a bus to the next town over. Or if we lived on the edge of nowhere, it'd be interesting to take a bus into the middle of nowhere, like, say, Oklahoma. (I've driven through Oklahoma once. It was... different, especially given that I grew up in Los Angeles.)

So, hmm. Boston. Early spring, which means "still too cold". North is thus contraindicated. East is contraindicated, as I don't wish to spend the night on the ocean, not to mention that its emptiness is contrary to "the human element". Also, Greyhound does not have any stops 60 miles into the Atlantic. I realize this comes a shock to many readers; rest assured that I was equally surprised.

West is the Great Desolation known as Central Massachusetts. We could do that... but I occasionally visit a friend who lives in Western Massachusetts, so it wouldn't be all that novel.

South, then. Go to greyhound website... and get a list of stops in CT. "Oooh, I could pick one at random." Mmmm no. I mean, yes, that would be one way to do this praxis, and while the Wild Spontaneous approach has some appeal, I feel it makes for a better novel, rather than being a better plan. Google maps it is. Where are these places?

"Middle of nowhere. West of the middle of nowhere. South of the middle of nowhere. Oooh, the White Flower Farm... is 10 miles away from here. Mrmmmm 3 mph walking, so 3 hours walk out, and 3 hours walk back.... no."

And that's when I realize that, heyyyy, waiiiiit a minute, there's Rhode Island. I had initially thought of Providence, but Providence turns out to be only 50 miles away. Not to mention we've been there a few times.

But Newport is 1, on the ocean, which 2, makes it awesome in my book, having grown up in LA and thus in love with the beach/ocean, and 3, is a city I've never been to.

The bus tickets, they have been purchased. The hotel room, it is reserved. And now, we wait for Saturday. The plan is to leave in the late afternoon and arrive in time for dinner, and then spend the majority of the day in Newport on Sunday.

To prepare, I read wikipedia's entry of psychogeography, and am intrigued by the early attempts to map a psychogeographical map onto the female form. I mean, hey, it got my attention, and maybe it just made you perk up your bunny ears, too, and well, I'm -totally- okay using cheap tricks to keep the reader interested.

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And thus... South Station! We depart at 4:30pm. The bus, it is comfortable. Rongo rongo instantly passes out, as she is wont to do in moving vehicles. Some snoring ensues, but there are no injuries sustained.

We arrive, and oh my word, there are daffodils. Like, oodles of them. Someone has gone crazy with the daffodilomatic or something. There was one section of side yard (on a corner) that was seething with daffodils. Sadly, the bus is too quick, and thus we have no photo.

We check in -- well, first we have to remember which hotel it is, but after some asking around, we figure it out -- drop off bags, and then it is off to explore for a suitable place for dinner. The sun is setting, and we pick a direction ("hmm, this kitchsy map in the hotel says there's a lot of stuff south of here, sooo suuurrre, let's go thataway"). And yes, the psychogeography does, in fact, draw us down this one main boulevard. A fairly narrow street, so it's rather inviting to cross the street to check out this or that storefront that amuses. Side streets lead down to the water and various shops on wharfs: should we compare it to the graceful arms of a woman that we sidle down, or perhaps the enchanting fingers that stretch off the main street, pointing towards the water?

Or perhaps this whole "mapping a city onto the female form" is bunk? I think I'll take that answer, thanks. :)

One thing we have difficulty assessing is: where are they hiding the places the locals go to? Perhaps this is entirely the wrong area of town. We peer down side streets, searching in vain for the cute restaurant tucked away, where one can enjoy an evening of quiet conversation with the local citizenry. We end up finding a Thai restaurant: bunnydragon recognizes the "drunken noodles" as pad ki mow; did we earn points with the waitress for such? A mystery that never gets solved. Rongo rongo gets bonus shrimp in her tom yum goong, as bunnydragon eschews such and donates his.

The night passes without event, which is notable, as we have a fairly bad track record of being woken up in hotels by fire alarms, loud mechanical noises, passing emergency vehicles, etc.

In the morning, we head out in search of brunch. Having noted the many signs advertising breakfast, we select one, only to be told: "we've had a huge rush this morning, and we're out of bagels". We look around for signs of GY0, as surely that is the kind of odd behaviour they would indulge in. We partake of their lovely breakfast options, and also purchase wrapped sandwiches for later.

And then, we are off for the cliff walk! Newport is essentially a peninsula that runs north/south, and we had started on the west side, closer to the north end. We had walked essentially straight south for both dinner and breakfast, so we cut diagonally northeast to get to one end of the cliff walk.

Said walk is approximately 3 miles in length, although quite a bit of it is unfinished -- you are scrambling a bit over rocks, etc. Bunnydragon is fascinated that the walk was donated in the 1800s by the property owners: a form of public service, offering such a view to the locals? Unknown, but probably unheard of in these times, unless I'm being unduly cynical.

Many photos document the walk. It's quite gorgeous. We pass a couple posing for wedding photos: we cheer and get a thumbs-up from the groom and grins from both. Quite a few runners, even though the walk is fairly narrow: between the view, the fresh air, and the not-arrow-straight path must make for a really inviting run. The whole walk is littered with mansions, which leads to much discussion of the involved social constructs/obligations of one wealthy person taking care of a small village of attendants. Half our lunch sandwiches are eaten, our feet dangling over giant rocks over the ocean.

The walk ends, not with a bang, but a whimper. We examine our not-to-scale map, which tells us that the cliff walk has taken us down the entire eastern side of the peninsula and now we've bit walking a bit westward along the southern tip. How much further to go west, and then north to return to town? We don't know, and we set out.

Well.

Let's just say the final answer is "not short". It's also not quite as scenic, being interior and not on the water. It's not terrible, but there's a definite psychogeographical shortcoming, as there are only cars, the occasional bicyclists, and no other pedestrians. Not inviting, to say the least.

After quite some pondering of "are we terribly lost" or "are we just miles and miles away from the centre of town?" rongo rongo calls up a friend to check teh int0rn3ts. At the same time, bunnydragon hails a lady who was walking the opposite way (having not seen many pedestrians, I was eager to talk to the first one I saw), who was somewhat confused by the map, but pointed out where we were: in the middle of the southern tip of the peninsula (further than we thought) and not especially close. But ahead would be a street where we could turn towards town: thus oriented, we continued. The lady walks off as rongo rongo finishes her phonecall: we compare notes and continue.

We find the street as promised, and start making our way inland. At this point, we were getting fairly tired, so we paused to rest and eat the rest of our lunch. Shortly after setting out again, we get hailed by a car: it's the same lady bunnydragon had been talking to. She knew we'd be walking back this way, and knowing how far we had to go, offered to give us a ride back if we were tired. Admitting such, we accepted her gracious offer. It turns out that she's a docent of the local Episcopal Church, and so she's quite experienced in giving tours of Newport, so our entire ride back is basically a nonstop personalized tour by an expert local, no less.

How's that for your SF0 moment, eh?

It turns out the world is fairly small: she was a nurse (having retired many years ago), and so could relate to the software business that bunnydragon is in. I didn't have a chance to slip her my character card (I know, I know: I seem like such a smooth operator -- and I am -- but alas, there just wasn't the right moment). And we didn't even get her name, though I wanted to, but again, New England being what it is, there's just some awkwardness like that. She very graciously drops us off at the bus terminal, and we thank her profusely for her time and commentary.

Then it's a matter of waiting for our bus. We looked at some souvenir sweatshirts, but bunnydragon disapproves of all of them, so no such materialism for us. We also attempted to obtain ice cream, but were foiled by both a faulty memory of where the Ben & Jerry's was and the fact that another ice cream place wasn't open. Curses!

The bus ride back is very pleasant; we arrive home safe and sound. And our legs don't even hurt all that much the next day from all the walking around. :)

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A note on the photos: the recurring octopus is Gertrude Gardener, a competitor in Octopus Wars. Bunnydragon's octopus is Charybdis, who is currently on secret assignment.