Feet hitched a ride and were terrified almost to death ...

... Yes, that's right, we hired a car, drove it out of Manhattan, along miles and miles of forest-lined highway, over more bridges than I can remember, to Newport, Rhode Island.
Why? Well, because it was close(ish) to one of my "virtual friends" Lee, over at Pink Granite and it's NEWPORT, apparently some sort of sailing Mecca! Getting out of Manhattan drove my anxiety levels up so high I may have snapped once or twice (RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT AAARRRRGGG LOOK OUT!!! and so forth) but once out, along the most amazing forest-lined highway, it was pretty fine. Although I shudder to imagine what would have happened if we hadn't hired a Sat Nav too.
Newport is a strange little town, wonderfully old. The brick and cobbled spaghetti-thin streets, full as a goog with lovely wooden houses. There was even a pink one.
After flinging our bag at one of our two beds, with cockatoo cushions, we hobbled into town to poke about and work out where we were going for dinner(so not to get lost when it was important not to) and ... buy a wee painting.
Then down a dock, for lobster rolls (yummy) - my goodness me they were good, ridiculously huge, and full of sweet lobster. O, and a big bowl of steamed littleneck clams (who said Americans were afraid of garlic? Not here they aren't, yummo). And the view, was most pleasing to Mr Brown. We then visited some of live lobsters at the Aquidneck, where we saw a huge one crush a big clam with his claw. I hope he was their show piece, not someones dinner.
After that, Mr Brown decided to buy a hat, and his card was rejected, $0 balance apparently. Thoughts of skimming and where this could possibly have happend whizzed. Mr Brown's call to the bank was met with a "call back in a few hours, the system is down". DOOM.And then to dinner. Lee and Chuck had organised everything and even arrived early so they would be there to greet us. Which turned out to be a good idea because we arrived and I realised we only knew them as Lee and Chuck - but the chap at the front desk had clearly been given his instructions, he knew exactly who we were and who was waiting for us!
Now, I'll admit to a little trepidation, these seemingly lovely people could have been "grooming" for ... ooo 2 years ... so they could smash us over the head and drag us off into the endless woods. Or, perhaps in real life we just wouldn't get along, I'm sure none of us reveal our completely 'real' selves in these bloggages.
But it turns out they weren't dull as dishwater, or axe murderers - they were perfectly lovely. We talked and talked, sent the waiter away, talked some more, sent the waiter away again, talked, ordered some tasty things, talked, ordered some dinner, wine selected for the name alone, talked some more. Mr Brown ate a lobster the size of his head (almost) and I had little ones. I'm still a little horse. Six hours later we finally released the poor poppets back into the wild. I see Lee has posted so I know they made it back safely! And for this I am glad.
On the way back we tested Mr Brown's card, balance back to what was expected. For this I am also glad!