We made it to Rhode Island yesterday after leaving New Jersey and traveling through New York and Connecticut. The drive here was pretty interesting as it involved a huge traffic jam due to a bad wreck and some adventures in trying to find a place to pull over a fifty foot long vehicle train to pee. Turns out blocking someone’s driveway in a neighborhood right off the interstate is a good solution (until they want to pull out of their driveway). Anyway, we immediately fell in love with Rhode Island after getting here. The weather and scenery is beautiful.
This morning, we woke up and headed to Newport, the self-proclaimed sailing capital of the world. I think I have heard Annapolis crown themselves with this distinction as well, but I’m sorry y’all, I think Newport takes it. Newport is a beautiful and charming New England sea town. There is a massive harbor in town with thousands of boats at dock, on moorings, or out sailing. You see boats everywhere you look. It is full of cute shops and enough restaurants to keep you busy for years.
There are quaint homes and buildings throughout Newport and massive mansions on its outskirts along the ocean. The Army Corps of Engineers restored the coastline back in the 1980’s and put in a sea wall and trail along the coast through the backyards of these mansions called the Cliff Walk. We took full advantage of that today by taking a couple hours to hike along it. There are waves crashing on rocky coastline on one side of you and mansions that I can only imagine came from the era of railroad tycoons on the other. This is a trail unlike any other.
As we were walking around the town of Newport, we stumbled on a North Sails store. Jamie and I reminisced about our honeymoon in the British Virgin Islands and how we met a cool older couple on a snorkeling trip who took us out for our first sailing lesson on a Hobie Cat. Lowell and Bea North told us how they had taken two years to sail around the world together on a 50 foot boat. Lowell was an Olympic sailing gold medalist and America’s Cup skipper who started a company, North Sails, that made racing sails better than any other on the market at that time. Great teacher to say the least. That chance encounter would start a love of sailing for Jamie and I and light the first spark of wanderlust in our minds of doing some extended travel.
Ever since then, Jamie and I have talked about taking time off from the hustle and bustle of “normal” life to travel and just live differently. As soon as we came back from our honeymoon, we bought a sailboat that we could travel and “camp” on. We have spent most warm weekends since then, sailing up and down the Chesapeake Bay. Sailing, and even the sight of a sailboat, has since invoked a deep feeling of freedom in me. We spent many hours dreaming about what it would be like to cast off the dock lines and point our boat south for the winter.
About four years ago, we rented an RV for the kids’ spring break out in Arizona and Utah. We had a great time and I remember Jamie and I talking about how we could do an extended trip on one since it would be much simpler and easier than a boat, but we just didn’t feel the same connection to an RV as we did to a sailboat. That changed when we saw an Airstream. I don’t know whether it is just great design or because they remind us of sailboats in several ways, but we have that same feeling of wanderlust and freedom when we see an Airstream. Our talks and dreams of travel soon turned to travelling on an Airstream. Several more years of dreaming and here we are.
We only spoke to Lowell and Bea over email or Facebook a couple times since our honeymoon 17 years ago, but we never forgot about them. We mentioned how we learned to sail (some serious name-dropping, I know) in the North Sails store and the guy working there said he had passed away a couple months ago but that he really made in impact on so many people’s lives. As we reflected on it today, it turns out he and his wife really did have an impact on ours. Thanks, y’all!
