ThomasLitchford

(Let’s pause to notice how strange it looks to end the above headline with a lower-case preposition.)

When I arrived in Newport this past July it was eight o’clock in the morning and still quiet. It was a weekday. The only people around were on their way to work, getting a cup of coffee, or out for a run or walk with the dog. I parked my car in the one-car driveway, unloaded the cats, and set about exploring.

All summer long, morning was the best time to be out. By noon the sidewalks were packed with yachtsmen, vacationers, and shoppers and children and pets. In the evenings I would sit down on Thames St. smoking and drinking a Vitamin Water and people-watching.

When Danielle arrived in August, we thought we had only one month more of tourist town craziness. We were wrong. Newport remained a weekend destination for cars bearing Mass., NJ, NY, and occasionally Penn. license plates.

We adopted a policy of leaving the island as little as possible, of not driving at all when we could avoid doing so. We bought bikes. And we waited for the people to stop coming.

Thanksgiving weekend seemed to be the fulcrum: more people left the city than visited it.

What this of course means is that stores and restaurants close earlier and we have to explore farther afield to find things to do, places to eat.

One such place is the wildlife refuge in Middletown near Second Beach. Another good place is a new restaurant called Sparc on Broadway in Newport. It’s a BYOB asian fusion place with very creative food. The decor looks to have been purchased from IKEA, which, if you’re a faithful reader, you know is a favorite spot of Danielle’s and mine.

Edit: ‘Sparc’ should be ‘Spark,’ above.