Kwaree Blog

Visiting Block Island – Again

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this post is worth over 38,000 of them. I apologize. I deleted about half of the photos I took yesterday, but so many of them were good that I didn’t have the heart to cut any further. You’ll just have to look at them.

I think I’ve been to Block Island, RI once before. It seems like more than that because I think about the place quite often. It’s one of those little gems that most of the area hasn’t visited. Don’t get me wrong, Block Island is jumping throughout the Summer, but the crowds disappear in the off season. Ahhh, the perfect time to visit.

The plan was to travel out to Block Island to have lunch at the Spring House Hotel. For my birthday last year, Laura got me a gift certificate just for this. I thought it was a great idea and was excited to go out and use it. We would take the 11AM ferry from Point Judith, arrive at Block Island at noon, eat lunch and leave at 3PM. Well, that was the plan.

When we arrived at Point Judith, we were a little early. I made a big fuss about getting out of the house at 8AM. I totally forgot how long it took to get to Point Judith, so yeah, as I said, we were a little early. Like about an hour. Good thing there was a high speed ferry that left at 10:30AM and only took a half hour to get to Block Island. By taking the high speed ferry, we arrived on Block Island an hour early (11AM).

When we got off the ferry, we walked straight up to the Spring House Hotel. I wanted to go up there just to let them know we were going to walk around a little bit and then come back for lunch. Hey, guess what? When we got to the hotel, we discovered that they don’t serve lunch after Labor Day. Oh well. We left.

On the way back down the road, I explained to Laura that it was actually a good thing that I didn’t call first to find that out. If I had, we wouldn’t have gone there for the day and would have just sat around doing other things. I was glad we made the trip. We just went and ate somewhere else.

Here’s the really cool part. Since we had a few hours to use up before the next ferry would bring us back to Point Judith, we decided to rent a scooter (or moped) to cruise around the island on. That was worth it because scooters are awesome to drive around on and you get to see the whole area. We drove from the most Northern tip of the island to the most Southern and made a bunch of stops in between. We looked hot on the scooter and all the other scooter drivers were envious of us because we could drive 28MPH. That’s a full MPH faster than most scooters on the island. Nobody had the guts to go that fast besides us. We were a gang of two.

At around 2:30PM, we gave the scooter back and did our thing to get on the ferry. During the ride back, I actually fell asleep on the bench. This was the slow ferry, so I had the time. Laura was busy talking with some old ladies who smoke and drank too much. I’ll tell ya, those ladies knew how to party.

Here are those 38 pictures I was talking about above. Enjoy.

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New Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker

Well, Saturday came and went. I don’t feel any older, I don’t look any older, but I am older.

Over the past few years, small things have changed. I have noticed my back aching a little more than it did when I was a kid. Also, the recovery time for just about everything takes longer now. Oh well, I just work harder and harder to fight the battle.

To celebrate Saturday, Laura bought me a new Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker. She got me a nice ice cream recipe book from Williams-Sonoma too. She also got me a gift card for the Red Lion Inn, in Stockbridge, MA and another one for the Spring House Hotel out on Block Island. I thought that was very nice. Have I ever told you that I want to live on Block Island? Talk about relaxation.

Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker

Williams-Sonoma Ice Cream Recipe Book

So, back to the ice cream maker. I guess she didn’t hear me when I told her I wanted to keep fit and trim for the rest of my life. She knows I have an ice cream weakness. Don’t send me to the grocery store alone…you know what I’ll come back with. Being the age I am and not having a belly is a miracle. I would like to keep it that way.

Well that got thrown out the door. I went out last night and got the ingredients for my first batch of homemade ice cream. I wanted to make the black cherry ice cream recipe, but black black cherries are out of season. Instead, I made the strawberry ice cream.

Strawberry Ice Cream Recipe

It was pretty easy. I just followed the recipe and did what I had to do with the ingredients. Unlike the beer recipes, this uses actual fresh ingredients. There are no pre-made mixures. This machine allows you to get as creative as you want.

Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream

This is the ice cream after mixing it in the ice cream machine and before putting it in the freezer. I have to stick it there for a few hours and then I can enjoy my first batch of homemade ice cream.

I vow not to get fat.

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Visiting Block Island, RI

If you have ever wanted to visit one of those real “No shoes” beach towns, you know the ones where people think of nothing more than eating ice cream and chilling out, then Block Island, RI is your place.

How is it that I have been living in NY for 32 of the 33 years I have been alive and never visited this little paradise that is only 3 hours away? Let’s just say, I am glad Laura pushed me into going. It was kind of difficult for me to pull away from my work, but I had my sister, Steph, handle things while I was gone.

There are a few ways to Block Island, either by small plane (hmmm…inspiration), the Block Island Ferry from New London, CT or Point Judith, RI. We decided that we would take the shorter and less expnsive ($15 round trip instead of the $30 round trip) ferry from Point Judith.

Now, you have to remember that this little vacation was only for a few days, but I haven’t been away for quite a few years, so I was very excited. The minute we reached Point Judith, I was just giddy. I hopped out of the car and called my mother asking her if we have ever been camping here, because the entrance to a campground we passed on the way in looked very familiar. She said yes, so that brought up a lot of memories of running around ankle deep in water looking for clams. We made it to the ferry and jumped on for our 55 minute trip. I really didn’t know what we would find.

The minute you see the port for Block Island, you just want to jump off the boat. You see people all over the place and really cool looking historic Bed & Breakfasts. People are riding bicycles and scooters up and down the roads. It really is a great vacation spot. I guess that’s why people like islands, because they are cut off from the rest of the world.

So we got off the ferry and walked up the road. Laura wanted to show me this great hotel she had discovered with her friend Jade on a previous trip here. On our way up the road, we passed an awesome farm and some great gardens that gave us lots of good ideas.

We finally made it to The Spring House Hotel. Now this was something. They had a large front porch were people were eating lunch and had a really interesting inside. We walked through and could sense the age by the uneven floors with carpeting over the original wood. I can only imagine how many families have had great vacations here. Their website says that important people have stayed here, such as Ulysses S. Grant, Mark Twain and Billy Joel. They have even hosted weddings for the Kennedys. This was my kind of place.

As we walked through, we came to the back patio, where there was a great view of the road heading south towards the cliffs.

I think maybe next summer we will stay at The Spring House. After a bunch of walking around taking tons of pictures, we had a great lunch/dinner at one of the hotels near the water. A nice ending to a perfect late July day.

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