Escape to the Ocean State

Two weeks ago, Gregory and I were lucky enough to escape Pittsburgh for a sublime "babymoon". (A vacation with the purpose of spending time as a couple before everything is turned upside by a baby... especially when it's the third one!) It was all made possible by Gregory's parents who had given us a Bed & Breakfast gift certificate www.bedandbreakfast.com for Christmas. It was unknown to them at the time that we were going to have another baby, but they understand the need for us to have the opportunity to get away from our kids for a few days and reconnect with each other.
If you take a peek at the website, the choices for locations and amazing B&B's are endless. It took us awhile to decide exactly where we wanted to travel because so many places looked awesome! I'm the type of person who would rather visit a thousand different places once then vacation in the same spot over and over again. I appreciate familiarity and some places deserve to be explored many times (like New York City or Paris), but we wanted to see a region of the country we'd never really seen before.

Destination: Rhode Island. (Disclaimer: Gregory has been to RI before... )

Sounds thrilling, right? But I would recommend that everyone go there. It's called the Ocean State because it seemed if you drove in any direction more than a half hour, you hit the shoreline. Granted it wasn't tropical, but for me in my 7 month pregnant state... the northeast coast temperatures were absolutely perfect.

We chose the William's Grant Inn in Bristol, RI. Cutest house ever. Cutest innkeeper ever! It felt very similar to the times I stayed in people's homes while traveling in Europe. They give you a key, offer advice on the best sites to see and a cozy room to sleep in. Not to mention a home-made breakfast every day.

Bristol is an adorable town with a lot of history. Our B&B, among other homes, was labeled with an historical plaque and probably preserved under strict guidelines. It was similar to Sewickley in that almost every store was either antiques or a restaurant... even the Dunkin Donuts looked pretty classy.

Our first day was pretty exhausting, since our flight was scheduled to leave at 6 AM. Anyone that knows us, knows very well that we are not morning people and it is almost impossible for us to go to bed earlier than midnight. We didn't get a lot of sleep Saturday night and get to the airport at a god-awful hour only to find out that the flight is delayed. We were routed through D.C. and the first part of the trip induced some serious nausea. I've never gotten airsick in my life, so I was not pleased with the implications for the rest of our trip. Who knew if this was a new pregnancy symptom and I wasn't going to be sick for every other flight AND our scheduled whale watching tour?

We arrived in Boston safely (and without using airplane barf bags), rented our car and drove the hour to Bristol, RI. We took a little walk through the town, had a lunch of sandwiches at a cute restaurant with a view of the harbor. Now here's the beauty of a babymoon: we were able to check back into our room and take a long nap! No kids to interrupt!

We woke up a few hours later and found the last place open in a sleepy little town on a Sunday night. I can't overestimate the value of relaxing during a dinner with Gregory. This probably happens about four times a year for us.


The next few days involved a lot of coastline hiking, whale watching, eating, stressing out in Boston traffic and exploring all that was possible in a few day's time. I'll get to those posts eventually!