Newport, Rhode Island ~ Day 3, Part 2

Ocean Drive. It was so beautiful. We made a few photo opp stops...

I wonder who the people are that live along Ocean Drive. What I do know is - these people are rich. Very rich!! Do you know how I know that? They have actually named their gorgeous homes. There are signs in front of their homes with the house names - such as Seaview or Manor Cove.

I want to be rich enough to name my house...

We stopped and sat on a bench at one of the beaches along Ocean Drive and enjoyed the scenery...

These seagulls kept flying by over and over and over...

It was quite chilly and windy that day. Glad I brought a sweater...

After driving around a bit, we went back to the hotel to freshen up.

That evening, we had dinner plans on Bowen's Wharf, but first, we wanted to meet up for a drink with a co-worker/friend of Doug (who lives in Newport on the weekends).

When we decided to go to Newport, we had no idea that Doug's co-worker Kate lived/grew up there. When Doug found out, he grilled asked her for some tips on the area. She was amazingly helpful. She gave us an entire list of things to do and places to go. She made some of our dinner reservations. She bought our tickets to the mansions. I can not thank her enough for all of her help and hospitality while we were there.

I had not met Kate before and was excited to meet her. We met up at the Grace Vanderbilt Hotel...

We planned to have our drinks on the rooftop bar because they have amazing views of the harbor.

Doug and I arrived a little early and got to the rooftop bar. If you look to the right (below), a rainstorm was about to come in. Ugh...

We ran back inside and the rain came down. Finally, Kate arrived and we were trying to decide if we should go somewhere else (the inside bar was packed because everyone went inside).

After about 15 minutes, the rain left and we decided to head upstairs again. It was all wet, but the view was indeed beautiful! I'm so glad we stuck around...

Doug forgot his sunglasses, so Kate let him borrow a pair of hers (heh)...

Back off ladies, he's all mine. ;) ...

Kate and I got along amazingly well and she's a total hoot. After two hours of laughs, Kate drove us over to our dinner destination - The Moorings...

We sat in a porch-like area with open windows...

The weather was beautiful - at first. When the sun started going down, it got down right cold. The windows were the plastic kind that you can zip down - and that was great. Except the waitress was having trouble zipping the window right next to me. It took about 10 minutes, but she finally got it to zip and I wasn't freezing anymore! Yay!

I went for the roast chicken for dinner...

And some sauteed brussel sprouts...

Doug had fish...

The food was really good.

Funny story though (besides the window issue). See these people below?

It was a father and a daughter (and the mother was there too). The daughter decided about halfway through our meal that she was going to have a huge, embarrassing argument with her dad. She nagged and nagged and nagged at him (I think about him using his phone at the table). The mom said very little. The daughter got up and left in a huff. She came back and then the dad left in a huff. It was so awkward because though we couldn't really hear all that was said, it was loud enough for everyone to know they were arguing - the tone was obvious.

I'm not sure exactly what they were arguing about, but it really wasn't the time or place for it to happen - especially because it lasted so long. Sometimes I don't know what the heck is wrong with people.

I guess that was our entertainment for the evening - lol!

So that was our fun (and entertaining) day. We decided we were "mansioned out" and our next day was going to be much more "chilled out."