Rhode Island, Where We've Been

The Breakers, Castle Hill Lighthouse, & Rail Explorers

by Olivia
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The Breakers

Newport, Rhode Island is home to a number of mansions built during the Gilded Age of America. In the 1800’s, the Vanderbilt’s were one of these families, known as “new money” that quickly amassed their fortunes in the railroad business. Their mansion in Newport, is known as The Breakers.  

The Vanderbilt’s lavishly furnished their new home and threw multi-million dollar parties for their wealthy guests.

The library is a stately symbol of status. Even the coffered ceilings are intricately detailed.

Service buttons in the Vanderbilt’s private rooms sit beside the beds to call servants to their bedsides.

The bedroom of Mrs. Vanderbilt is lavishly decorated with her bed, seating, and dressing areas.

The kitchen was huge, but it would need to be for all the guests they were entertaining during their time there!

Castle Hill Lighthouse

Castle Hill Lighthouse was in a secluded spot just southwest of Newport. The kids and I ventured out there, hopping the rocks and along steep cliffs to finally reach it, then we found the shortcut through the bushes!

I was able to grab a few photos when sunset came, in between the dense smoke from the Canadian wildfires. 

The smoke rolled in by the morning, but I still tried to get a shot of the bridge from the other side. Beautiful and so still in the morning light!

Rail Explorers

While we were parked at the campground for the week, we kept seeing these little red pedal rail cars going by. We finally figured out what they were and hitched a ride on one of them as our last stop for the trip. 

We pedaled the 800lb car about 6 miles up the coast of the island and through the rain. It was truly a unique experience and a lot of fun.

 

 

 

Carr Point Recreation Area

We stayed off base (on military land, but no gate to have to go through) at Carr Point Recreation Area. 

There were only about 5 campsites and each had electric and water, but no sewer. The campground made an agreement with a nearby park for guests to use their dump for a fee, so it worked out in the end for a week’s stay at Carr Point.

There is a railroad that crosses just in front of the park, but it is not active with trains so you won’t hear any horns blowing. However, there are small pedal-powered rail cars on the tracks that go by frequently, but they’re not loud.

We had our electric voltage drop several times while we were there. We reported it to the office, and while it got better, it didn’t fully resolve.

We had good Starlink signal with 138 down, 12 up. Verizon on the phone was at 3 bars and with our cell router, it was 5 bars. AT&T with the cell router was also 5 bars.