Day 2 of the Foxboro Rally

     After a week or so with a dearth of blog material, I now have more than I can use.  Yesterday was a bunch of so-so technical seminars, a large supper and a line dance instructor... NOT!  The best part of the day was a trip to Benjamin's Restaurant in Taunton where we had a very nice lunch and Durelle enjoyed a two hour visit with her UMass roommate, Marcia (Smith) Dudley.  Today the organizers pulled out all the stops.  Busses took us on an expertly guided tour of Providence, RI.  The streets were more of a challenge for the bus driver than the tour guide.  I won't begin to summarize the significant history of the area, nor can I show all of the pictures I took.  I edited down from the original 55 to about three dozen.  There were a few of the buildings in Providence.  Then we boarded the largest sightseeing catamaran in New England, a 400 passenger, three deck vessel.  The tour showed us ten of RI's 22 lighthouses, and we cruised slowly through the Newport harbor.  I got a nice picture of eight of the ten lighthouses, a number of impressive yachts, six or eight 12 meter class sailboats which had competed in (and sometimes won) the America's Cup.  Upon the completion of the boat tour we ended up at the long-closed Quonset Naval Air Station at the "O-Club" for lunch.
     The pictures of the capital and some other classic buildings in Providence are nice, but I think I will utilize my available bandwidth for the pictures taken in Narragansett Sound and the Newport Harbor.  The second of the ten lighthouses was the Plum Beach Light.

     The third was the Dutch Island Light.  Nearly all of the lights were less than 50 feet high...hey, RI is a small state.

     Perhaps the classic RI lighthouse that often shows up as an icon on annual reports and such is the Castle Hill Light.

     There were many more attractive scenes of waterfront estates that I have not included.  The harbor shots started with the Queen Mary II.  She was too big to go into the harbor.

     Next I will include shots of some of the more impressive yachts.  Then I'll show some of the America's Cup boats.

     The narrator identified all the America's Cup boats we saw and which ones won in what year.  I did not take notes.  Some of you aficionados (Ann) may recognize some of the names.  If you want more shots, drop me a line.

     The Columbia, the Intrepid and the Waverly (Westerly?) were all present.  As I mentioned, we ended up at the "O-Club" for lunch.  I took a picture of the plaque on the front of the building.

     Believe it or not, I have one more picture for you.  While parked in Providence and waiting for our tour guide to show up, I took a picture of a bird in a tree.  I think it is either a night heron or a bittern (Duane?).