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ARE YOU READYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?! WE’RE GOING TO WESTERLYYYYYYYYYYYY (& Hopkinton) :) In case you couldn’t tell by the intro, this is Aemilia We started the day in North Scituate (No this is not a typo) to pick up our friend, (and favorite youth choir director), Larry. He also happens to be the expert on Westerly while the rest of us are Northern Rhode Islanders. For our first stop, we visited Festival Farm in Hopkinton, a lovely farm with animals you can pet and feed. We especially loved feeding the goats, donkeys, and alpacas. The bunnies were also extremely cute. Our personal favorite was a goat named Boris who had escaped from his enclosure and followed us around the farm. He also visited other animals, like the donkeys, and ate their food. I do have to admit, there is one slightly scary animal at Festival Farm, which is the emu. Looking at the emu, he is a little scary, but mostly very cute. So I decided it would be a good idea to pick some long grasses and try to feed them to him (I felt bad that he was being left out while all the cute fluffy animals got fed). I held out the grasses and he surveyed me with his beady, yet wild, eyes. It was at this moment I realized that it didn’t have any real ears, just weird holes, which to be honest, was not a very comforting realization. Maybe the emu thought I was judging him, but he took the opportunity to snatch the grasses out of my hand with his violent beak, pecking me as he did so. I realized at that point, that the farm probably didn’t sell emu food for a reason.  The Emu - Aemilia found it scary, but it's really quite nice. From there we drove down a confusing road to a very weird and hard to get to hiking area. The good thing about this hiking area was that there were alot of Native American rock piles if you like that sort of thing. The bad thing about this hiking area, which in my mind is more important was that the trail disappeared randomly and we were left stranded in the middle of Hopkinton on (possibly CURSED) sacred Native American land. Not my personal cup of tea, but maybe it sounds fun to some of you crazy people. (Note from Heidi - I absolutely LOVED this area, which is called Manitou Hassannash Preserve and is located on Lawton Foster Road North in Hopkinton. There are a multitude of rock structures, and many of them are large and very well preserved. I found it fascinating, and could have spent another hour or two taking a closer look at the structures, so I guess I am a crazy person according to my dear daughter, Aemilia…..hahaha 😂) When we got to Westerly, we took a nice walk around Wilcox Park. For those of you who might want to know the background on the park, there was a lady named Harriet Wilcox who owned a ton of land in Westerly and she said “The people shall have their park” and gave them the land. Very dramatic. Kind of like when my mom started this blog and said “The people shall have their blog and the children shall be forced to write blog posts they don’t want to write on top of their other work”. We especially liked the fountain with a ton of little fish and some turtles in it. Someone had thrown some (very high-quality looking) bread into the fountain and all the animals were enjoying it, which was very cute. We got to see the Westerly Library from the outside, which my mom appreciated. She said that next summer she might try to visit all the libraries in Rhode Island, so stay tuned for that! (Note from Heidi - I can't wait visit all of the public libraries in RI and have my darling daughters, especially my witty first-born, write about them!!! 🤣) Then we got to my favorite part of the day. FOOD! We had lunch at The Bridge Restaurant, which is set on the Pawcatuck River, right at the border of Westerly and Pawcatuck, Connecticut. As you might have already guessed, there is a bridge very close by. Aoife and I enjoyed sharing fish and chips, while Tarynn was a PAIN finishing her burger at a snail’s pace. It was a very nice restaurant and we appreciated the titles of the entrees on the kids menu. After lunch we walked around Watch Hill and went to go visit Taylor Swift. I’m not going to tell you her address because then this post will get deleted, but if you know generally where she lives, her house is blurred out on google maps so you can tell which one it is. Yes, I looked up Taylor Swift's house on Google maps (it’s not stalking it’s research). If you want to learn about the history of Taylor Swift’s house, it is available in song form on her newest album “Folklore”. The song is called The Last Great American Dynasty. My mom also made us walk to the Watch Hill Lighthouse that wasn't really notable other than that we left Tarynn a little ways back because she didn't want to walk anymore, and there were nice views of Taylor Swift’s house. And that we should have driven because if you have a senior citizen with you, you can drive on the otherwise private road. But despite having a senior citizen with us, we walked. Taylor Swift didn’t appear to be home, or she just had all the curtains closed and lights off. I don’t blame her. We also did some walking on the beach on the little path that leads to Napatree Point, but I’m trying to block it out of my memory because I don’t like sand. Thank you for your cooperation. (Note from Heidi - We were on this trail for all of about 5 minutes, which put Aemilia WAY over her sand tolerance limit. Making a mental note that next time we should sit her down in a comfortable chair so she can tune out and not spread bad vibes while we go off and explore beautiful places.)  Path to Napatree Point Then it was time for more food! After walking around Watch Hill a little bit, we ended the day by getting gelato at Pompelmo Gelateria. I LOVE gelato. So much. I got part berry and part passionfruit gelato and it was AMAZING. I also tried Aoife’s and it was delicious as well. On the way home we drove through Misquamicut but didn’t get out because I had already had WAY TOO MUCH SAND for one day. (I stand by this assertion even though my mother has decided to be mean to me and say rude things to me about not liking the beach). And we looked at the houses, considered which oceanfront mansions we should buy, and then sang along with the radio all the way home. Other places we've enjoyed in Westerly:
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Welcome!We are a family who loves to travel and explore. Covid-19 has changed our plans for summer 2020, but we are making the best out of the situation by exploring our beautiful home state of Rhode Island. During the summer of 2020, we are hoping to visit every town in Rhode Island. Thank you for joining us on our journey! Archives
September 2020
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