Providence

We took a couple of days off from the boat this weekend - almost like a real weekend.  Friday night we went out with our friends Skip and Heather and Heather's daughter Samantha.  Went to a local Japanese place for a tepanyaki type dinner where the chef amazed the kids with the usual culinary acrobatics and placated the adults by squirting saki into their mouths while shouting "more saki, more happy'"  - it was a win for everyone.
Saturday morning we finished off re-installing some of the bits and pieces we had pulled off and serviced during the week so that the boat was ready to get splashed on Monday.  Then we loaded into the car and headed off on a short road trip to Providence, which is the state capital for Rhode Island.  This was the first day and night we had spent away from the boat for over two months.

Providence waterfront

Rhode Island is the smallest state so it only took us about half an hour to reach.  We checked into a hotel and then headed out to do some shopping for some essentials.  The kids have been saving up for a while to buy a lego toy which they managed to find at a local toy store so they were wrapped and spent the rest of the day and evening building it.  With the kids occupied Nic and Scott managed a meal out in the hotel steak restaurant by themselves - this was a first for the whole trip and a real treat.
Providence is a small interesting city.  The downtown area is high rise buildings many from the early 1900's so there is some really interesting architecture mixed in with the modern developments.

We wandered around for most of the Sunday enjoying the autumn sunshine being away from the boat for a day.  We managed a visit to the Rhode Island School of Art and Design which has a fantastic art museum.  The museum is on 6 levels and relatively small but has a suprisingly comprehensive collection of modern and classic art and artifacts which makes it really interesting.  There were paintings by all the famous French impressionists like Manet, Monet, Van Gogh and Cezane, together with Dutch and American artists, sculptures by Rodin including a really striking marble piece called "The Hand of God."  There was a whole floor with ancient Egyptian artifacts incuding a genuine mummy and sarcophagus and another area with Roman era artifacts.   There were smaller displays of chinese, korean and Indian art and artifacts.  All in all very educational.  It looks like many of the pieces have come as donations from wealthy Rhode Islanders during their travels.  We class this as a field trip for the the kids.

PS  Happy Birthday Mum.  Hope you had a great day.