Newport, Rhode Island

James has officially left for OCS, and I miss him like crazy! We traveled to Rhode Island a few days before he had to report, so that we could spend some time together and get to know the Newport area. We stopped in Gettysburg on the way, as I had never been there before, but we only had a chance to spend about an hour there. I was amazed at how different the memorials were from other battlefields and feel like Virginia has a lot of work to do! If you haven’t been to Gettysburg before, you definitely need to go! Rhode Island was wonderful as well. New England is gorgeous, and I would have loved to have spent some more time up there, especially if we had more money. It’s super expensive, but everything is well worth it. We had some awesome clam chowder, clam cakes, and dough boys, and well as fresh calamari with peppers. The food was amazing, and so were the views! We went to the cliff walk twice, looking at all of the mansions we could only dream of affording. Like…really really dream. You can check some of them out at: http://www.newportmansions.org/ Next time I visit, we are going to try to go inside some of them, but we ran out of time this trip. The wharf is adorable, with fun shopping, and great looking pubs. I’m excited about visiting James! I talked to him today for about five minutes, and he asked that no one send him packages, as he isn’t allowed to have them yet. Opps! I already sent one to him and David Walsh, so I hope they don’t get into trouble. I couldn’t really hear him, as he was on a payphone in the hallway, but he said that he was doing well, but that he hadn’t slept more than 2 hours a night, and that his drill sergeant was fair, so he didn’t mind doing the stupid stuff. 50 of them reported, and already 25 of them have been rolled by a class, so let’s pray that James doesn’t get rolled! (I’ve already booked my plane ticket for Nov. 29th!) Please keep writing him though! :-)