We went to the Newport, RI to look at rich peoples’ mansions (“The Breakers” and “Marble House”). You know you’ve arrived when your house has a name.

They don’t let you take photos inside the houses. The windows are open, so photographic damage can’t be the reason. My belovedly cynical other half thinks that this is just so that the museum store can sell more postcards and photo books, but in this case, I’m actually not that cynical. I agree that money is the motivation, but not for the postcard and souvenir-book businesses. I think they just want (very reasonably so) to keep people moving through the museum so that they don’t clog up traffic, with 6-person groups all taking the same shot with 6 different cameras. If traffic doesn’t get clogged up, they can get more (paying) people through the door. So in that respect, the no-photography rule is motivated more by similarities to the restaurant business than to the movie business.

The mansions are all off of Bellevue Avenue. It is a very inconvenient location because of the presence of a huge shopping mall at the beginning of the two-lane street (with a pedestrian crosswalk to the parking lot, thrown in for extra-good measure) that clogs all automobile traffic and backs it up for many blocks in all directions.

The houses themselves? Ho, hum. The immaculately-landscaped oceanfront houses have 50-200 rooms and had waitstaffs of 20-40 people in their heyday. The Cliff Walk is a very nice ocean-side mostly-paved ¼-mile walk that runs from The Breakers to the Marble House.

The last tour is allowed inside at 5pm; the grounds close at 6pm. We were in the Marble House towards the end, and there was a staffperson following us through the house, politely reminding us that we were between her and the end of her day. We are the type of people who listen to every bit of the audio tour (including all the “optional” bits); three-quarters of the way through, our impatient escort reminded us that the grounds closed at 6pm and that we should be sure to leave time to enjoy the rest of the grounds.

A discussion about visiting the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory led to a July 4th weekend trip to Cape Cod and to Martha’s Vineyard.

Friday we went to the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory. It was very underwhelming. The potato chips are great, but the “tour” is just a 5-minute walk through a hallway where you can read artistically-handmade posters and see the potato chip floor through some windows. Pictures were forbidden inside, but I managed to take this picture before told to put away my camera:

After walking through the hallway, we ate some free samples of chips, bought a few bags and a “Cape Cod Potato Chips” chip clip, took some pictures outside, and drove to Hyannis. It is pretty much what you’d expect — picturesque New England seaside town.

The next day we got onto the ferry for Martha’s Vineyard. We stayed at the Wesley Arms in Oak Bluffs. The hotel was fine, having air-conditioning, a parking lot, harbor-side location, and walkable proximity to downtown and Ocean View Park, without being so close as to be bothered by people-noise at night. Walkability was key, because we were unable to secure a ferry reservation for our car — we walked onto the ferry, walked around town, and picked up our rental car the second day.

Martha’s Vineyard is basically a place to vacation in a low-key kind of way — read a book, go out to breakfast/brunch/dinner, walk around, and look at beaches, craftsy places (we went to a real pottery barn and a glass-blowing place), and lighthouses. Here are the Google-bait restaurant reviews:

• Palio Pizzeria (Hyannis, MA). Not quite Pizzeria Regina, but good enough.
• Baxter’s Boathouse (Hyannis, MA). Excellent fried and broiled seafood.
• The Original Gourmet Brunch (Hyannis, MA). Standard “gourmet” American-style brunch. My side rant is that I’ve never been satisfied with restaurant-style “over-medium” eggs — they are always too rare or too “done”. Over-medium eggs have solid whites and thickly viscuous yolks (but not “hard”).
• Zapotec (Oak Bluffs, MA). This was a recommendation from a friend; the mussels, fish tacos, and sangria were excellent.
• Mad Martha’s Homemade Ice Cream (Oak Bluffs, MA). Their website sucks, but the ice cream was good (as could be expected — New England has the highest per-capita consumption of ice cream in the US — an ice cream store has to be good to stay in business).
• The Black Dog (Vineyard Haven, MA). This is the iconic eponymous New England institution. We had brunch here. Good homemade sausages, but overall, nothing special — unsurprising, considering that their home page features their merchandise catalog instead of any food. I broke down and bought a Black Dog cap at the store.
• The Bite vs. Menemsha Fish Market (Chilmark, MA). We got some excellent take-out fried seafood next to the beach and had a sunset beach picnic. The New England clam chowder from the Bite was a very clear winner over the clam chowder from the neighboring Menemsha Fish Market. The Bite chowder was thick and tasty without feeling too heavy; the Menemsha Fish Market chowder was thin, with a pool of butter that floated at the top despite my best efforts to stir it back into the chowder. The Menemsha Fish Market did have a very excellent lobster salad sandwich.
• Humphries (Oak Bluffs, MA). More homemade ice cream. It’s all wasted on me because I’m not an ice cream fan. But it was good.
• Scottish Bakery (Vineyard Haven, MA). One can’t really go wrong with an English muffin egg/bacon/cheese breakfast sandwich.
• Chicama Vineyards (West Tisbury, MA). Not much of a winery tour, but the tasting was good. We bought a quarter-case of wine: Summer Island Red, Chenin Blanc, and Cranberry Satin.
• Little Pete’s (Oak Bluffs, MA). We were intending to go to Jimmy Sea’s for dinner, but it was a two-hour wait. The hostess pointed us towards Little Pete’s, a few doors down. We were hesitant because the place was completely empty. However, it turned out that the restaurant had just opened. So we discovered a gem. Both the lobster and the salmon with dijon crust were excellent. Little Pete’s has the perfect menu layout: fish at the top, sauces at the bottom, choose your combo. My side-rant is that restaurant menus always enumerate all permutations of entrée + starch + sauce, which just makes the menu huge and confusing. I’ve always wanted to see a menu where you choose (a) entrée (e.g., type of fish), (b) sauce (teriyaki, herb-encrusted, etc.), and (c) sides (mashed potatoes, veggies, etc.): Little Pete’s delivers!
• Linda Jean’s (Oak Bluffs, MA). More American-style brunch. Again, good.

Finally, it was back to the ferry and back to Boston, where we decided to forego the July 4th Esplanade fireworks that we’ve been seeing for the past three years. The show is good, and people go through a lot of trouble to watch it, but yeah — been there, done that.

The Charlestown Navy Yard is part of the National Park Service. We went to see the U.S.S. Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship in the world (launched October 21, 1797). The U.S. Navy makes the self-guided tour pamphlet available for download.

Entering the Constitution tour area required passing through a metal detector. There are two lines. The self-guided tour is an expedited line; you can board the ship when ready. A guided tour only boards once every 30 minutes. Being impatient, we went through the self-guided tour line. Once on board, however, we discovered to some small amount of disappointment that access to the lower decks of the ship is only granted to guided tour members.

Next, we went to board the U.S.S. Cassin Young, a World War II destroyer, another alumni of the Charlestown Navy Yard. It is completely self-guided (although there are NPS personnel available to answer questions). As on the Constitution, only the main deck is available.

Finally, we walked back to City Hall Plaza to watch the World Cup Finals on a large outdoor screen. PepsiCo was on hand to give out free samples of Sierra Mist and various flavors of Mountain Dew. WCVB (the local ABC affiliate) was also on hand to provide live shots of the enthusiastic crowd at a few points during the live broadcast. The spectating crowd was unsurprisingly overwhelmingly pro-Italia, with many people sporting national flags, blue “toni” jerseys, and painted faces.