Ever the coffee maven, the Bashful Adventurer visits the Coffee Grinder in Newport, RI. Will its brew measure up?
Category: United States
Eternal Newport
Sitting outside at the Castle Hill Inn and sipping a lemon drop martini, I imagine that whoever coined the phrase “lawn party” did so for a place like this. What could be better than sitting on an Adirondack chair, cocktail in hand, and watching the boats go by? I almost expect Daisy Buchanan and Jay…
New Heights at the Yankee Peddler Inn
Let your imagination thrive at the Yankee Peddler Inn in Newport, RI.
Bannister’s Wharf: Above It All in Newport, RI
On a visit to Newport, RI, the Bashful Adventurer finds a blissful place to stay: in guestrooms at Bannister’s Wharf. What makes them special?
Making Field Trips More Fun: Gargoyles and Grotesques
It’s Wacky Wednesday! One favorite travel oddity is a certain grotesque at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. The difference between a gargoyle and a grotesque, I have learned, is that gargoyles have spouts as part of a building’s drainage system. Grotesques apparently are merely decorative. Who knew gargoyles served such a practical function?…
Three Lines Worth Waiting On (and Two to Skip)
The frustration of any trip—especially one taken during peak tourism times—is waiting on line. If only all major world attractions had a FastPass, where I could return at a designated hour and cut right to the front of the line. Some attractions, though, are worth those minutes and hours and sweaty days of snaking forward…
Dining Before the Revolution in North Salem
There’s just something alluring about having dinner in a low-ceilinged dining room with peanut shells on the floor and a fireplace and ancient-looking wooden beams holding everything in place and rippled views from the antique glass windows. That this place—Purdy’s Farmer and the Fish in North Salem, N.Y.—has good food, too, is just a bonus….
R & R, Nature and Nurture, on Sanibel
Not every vacation can be a jungle adventure in the Amazon. Sometimes, a traveler just needs to get away and for the trip to be unthinkingly stress-free. For a quick escape, I tend to choose Florida. It’s all too easy to buy a plane ticket on a site like CheapOair and then head south at…
Sanity on Sanibel
Florida features so many destinations, and hotels are so numerous, that making a choice can be overwhelming. Even narrowing down a list of prospective hotels can be daunting. At the high end, chances are you won’t really go wrong no matter how you choose a place to stay. At more modest levels, though, success can…
How We Want Woodstock
Watching Peace, Love & Misunderstanding (2012), I remember how I’d like my ideal life to be, full of Jane Fonda as a hip grandmother, happily cluttered houses fostering free-range chickens, and women with whom to howl at the moon whenever it happens to be full. I wonder whether I’d be as uptight as Catherine Keener…