Connecticut is always the worst part of the journey

Greetings, SOS friends!  Our adventures this weekend will take us from the frozen, rolling hills of Massachusetts to the (hopefully) warm plains of Texas. 

ROAD TRIP!!!!!!1!1!!!

We left in Elizabeth's Prius, which shall for this trip take the honorific "Hybrid Maude," at 9 am.  Our mission for the day was simple--drive as far as we could without completely losing our minds. 

Statistics:
States crossed:  7
States Peed in:  4
Diet Cokes Consumed:  9
Bags of trail mix consumed:  1
Cows Seen:  57
Songs Caterwauled:  Innumberable

And now, a mystery.  Even though it ranks #48 out of 50 in terms of area (and awesomeness), Connecticut always takes FOREVER to get through, against the very laws of physics. Lizzie and I decided to amuse ourselves by treating the state's name like Voldemort, its very utterance a taboo.  It turns out I am sort of like Harry Potter, and couldn't stop accidentally saying Connecticut, summoning its evil to menace us.  While in CT, we had to stop at a Dunkies to hit the bathroom, and decided that we'd try to make it all the way to PA before doing so again.  Putting the P back in PA, if you will.  After four days, we finally made it out of CT, dumping out into NYC traffic, and then through beauteous NJ (j/k the parts we saw were nasty) and finally, dear lord, finally into PA. 

Smile.  You're in Pennsylvania, and you didn't pee your pants.

The benefits of Home Ownership

 Goodness, look at that gorgeous mansion in the distance.  What amazingly wealthy, highly cultured socialite could possibly own such a palatial domicile overlooking the tempestuous Atlantic?

Me.  I do.  Get off my lawn, poors.

High Risk of Injury

 There's a gorgeous cliff walk in Newport that goes behind some of the giant mansions, which, unfortunately, we didn't have a chance to explore on this particular day trip.  We'll come back for more when it's not raining and misty.  We also didn't get to toss babies from the cliffs, as show in the above picture, but we did walk through the tunnel of love, and once again, Lizzie illustrated which of the two of us is the more intelligent, as she stayed on dry ground while I descended down the wet and slick "forty steps" (see my shoes in the Rochambeau picture to get a really good idea of my survival instinct) to get a better view of the foggy ocean.

Vampires and Silver Bullets!

 Look at me, trying to be as cool as Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, and failing.  My pointing arm is too high up, and I don't have a Coors light can crushed in my hand.  I admire the diligence of the young, drunk person who gave a beer to Le comte de Rochambeau, but I feel like this war hero deserves better than watered down piss. 

Rochambeau played a huge role in helping America win the Revolutionary war.  He departed Newport in July of 1781, cruising through Connecticut to join Washington (who actually commanded fewer troops than Rochambeau) in New York, the combined forces then marching onto Virginia to a little siege I like to call "The Siege of Yorktown" and then onto a little battle I like to call "the Battle of the Chesapeake."  In late September, he hooked up with his pal the Marquis de Lafayette, and was vital in forcing the surrender of Cornwallis.  So, while it is a popular joke to tell the French that "if it weren't for us, you'd be speaking German," in actuality, if it weren't for the French, we'd be speaking...er, English.  You know what I mean.

Anyway, victorious, Rochambeau returned home to France, and WAS ALMOST GUILLOTINED during the reign of terror.  France, why your revolution gotta be so creepy?  Napoleon I gave him a pension, and he died at the age of 81 in 1807.  This statue (a replica of one in Paris) was donated in his honor in 1934.

So...why's the state called Rhode Island...

When it's not an island?  Because, my friends, its full name is the "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations."  Ain't nobody got time to use such a big name for such a rinky-dink state, so it's been shortened in common parlance, leaving out the (uncomfortable) reference to the mainland. We drove from Exeter, stopped for lunch in Point Judith, and crossed the (toll) bridge over Jamestown to Rhode Island, that is, the actual Rhode Island, also known as Aquidneck, the largest island in Narragansett bay.  There are several theories as to why Aquidneck was called Rhode Island, but in 1644, DJ Roger Williams spun out this line:  "Aquethneck shall be henceforth called the Isle of Rodes or Rhode-Island." and a legend was born.  Attempts have been made to change the island's name officially to Aquidneck, to avoid the confusion of crossing a bridge from Rhode Island into Rhode Island, but the measure never passes, though the RI department of transportation graciously allows Aquidneck to be a variant appellation.  DJ Roger Williams and the Variant Appellations will be taking the stage now.

So.  What's on Aquidneck/Rhode Island, Rhode Island?  Newport!

Exeter, Rhode Island

 This is the baptist church adjacent to the graveyard where poor Mercy is buried.  The whole town was quiet, and seemingly shrouded in an eerie mist.  All of the trees and stones were coated in lichen, indicating that the air, at least, is clean.  Mercy Brown's story is one of the best documented cases of exhumation to deal with the problem of the undead.  It's interesting how close to the 20th century this occurred, and how the advent of embalming finally reaching these rural farm towns (which was sure to prevent the undead from rising to drink the blood of the living) helped alleviate some of their fears.  By 1882, ten years before Mercy died, it had been discovered that TB (the artist formally known as consumption) was in fact caused by bacteria, but folk knowledge and local legends still held a lot of clout, allowing for the disturbance of Mercy's grave.  I wonder what she had to say to her father when he showed up thirty years after her exhumation.  The cemetery she's buried in is still accepting new tenants, and we saw a stone for a 19 year old man who had passed in 2005. 
The cemetery is eerie, but peaceful, and it doesn't seem that Mercy is angry.  I imagine she gave this young man the grand tour when he was interred, telling him to thank his lucky stars that vampires in the 21st century merely sparkle.

Mercy of the Fallen

A cold and misty day in January seemed like a good time to visit the undead.

George Brown was a farmer in the small town of Exeter, Rhode Island in the late 19th century.  Consumption was all the rage, then, and George lost his wife to the disease in 1883, and his eldest daughter, Mary Olive, died less than six months later in 1884.  It was quiet for a while, the disease, until it struck George's seemingly healthy only son Edwin around 1891/2.  He struck out with his wife to Colorado Springs to seek treatment from Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman   cure his illness in the healing waters, and while he was away, his younger sister, Mercy, fell ill and died on January 18th, 1892.  She was placed in a crypt while everyone waited for the ground to thaw.

George's neighbors began to whisper.  Something wasn't right--illness was common, but it seemed George's family was having a considerable run of bad luck.  They confronted him with their suspicions that one of his family members was in fact undead, and feeding on the living.  They demanded he do something before the vampire started finding victims outside of the Brown family.

With a group of friends and neighbors, George had a doctor exhume the corpses of his wife and daughter Mary Olive, who were, having been ten years in the ground, in advanced states of decay.  However, when they looked in Mercy's coffin, she seemed to have shifted, and her body was still fresh. When the doctor removed her heart, it dripped blood.  The doctor drained her body of fluids, and her bloody heart was burned on a nearby stone wall.  The ashes were given to Edwin, who had recently returned, still ill, so he could drink them in a protective potion.  Mercy's body was buried, as was Edwin's when he died just two months later.  George himself lived until 1922, and the fates of his other two youngest daughters is unknown.  People who visit Mercy's grave often report seeing blue orbs...like this one in a picture I took, to the right of her grave.