USA - Rhinebeck, Cape Cod, Newport, Long Island

Well, I just realized I've been merrily posting photos but not actually written anything about our trip since we were at Lake Placid.

From there we headed to Rhinebeck, NY for Tammy to attend the sheep and wool show.  It's the biggest in the country and she's been eagerly awaiting it.  The thought of 40,000 people in one place doesn't appeal to me one bit so I spent the day browsing antique stores and even bought some quilts.  We stayed in an apartment beneath a lady's house.  It overlooked the Hudson River - just lovely.

Next was Cape Cod.  We spent the first day driving around the Cape, the next day we took the ferry for a day on Martha's Vineyard and then a day by ferry to Nantucket.  We loved it all!  Our accomodation for 4 nights was the Hyannis Harbor Hotel which was right across from the ferry terminal. It was great to have a view of the harbour and to just walk across the road to the ferry.

Then it was Newport, Rhode Island.  On the way we stopped at the Sandwich Beach to see the boardwalks. We only had a short time at Newport so visited a couple of the Vanderbilt mansions.  Wow! We stayed in an old inn which was extremely quaint.  It also provided our first breakfast where we actually got to eat with metal utensils and drink from a mug instead of a paper cup. It's a bit horrifying to see how many paper plates, paper or plastic cups, plastic utensils and the remainders of little "kits" provided for coffee making (plastic sachet containing sugar, artificial sweetener, coffee whitener, a paper napkin and a plastic stick to stir the coffee - the only thing we use is a sachet of sugar!!) get thrown out.

Moving on again we took a ferry across to Long Island and drove almost to the tip, staying in a beachfront hotel in Montauk.  What a shame it rained... and rained.  The ocean was pretty wild and the waves crashed loud!  I was woken at 4am to a high tide that felt like it was going to come straight into the hotel room.

Today we drove back along Long Island, checking out some of the amazing houses in the Hamptons. We drove past the house that was in the movie "Something's Gotta Give" with Jack Nicholson.  You can only get a glimpse of it as most of the houses are hidden behind high hedges.  We took another ferry back across from Long Island to Connecticut.  It was another drizzly day so we had a bit of a shopping expedition this afternoon.

Next stop.... Pennsylvania!