The long road to Rhode Island

We just got back from a trip to Providence to visit my family and attend my friend Anne's wedding. The trip there was awful. We flew from Indianapolis, were supposed to connect in DC and then fly to Providence, arriving around 6:30. Well, there were storms in DC, so we boarded the plane at 2, deboarded at 3, had to wait by the gate for a couple more hours, took off at 5, then circled around DC until we almost ran out of fuel and hand to land in Pittsburgh to refuel. We finally got to DC at 10pm, and learned that our PVD flight was cancelled, so we'd been automatically rebooked for 10PM, yes PM, the next day! What stinks the most is that United didn't give us ANY food in all that time, plus they wouldn't help pay for our unexpected hotel room.

Here we are circling DC. The clouds were pretty neat until it got dark out.


Luckily my mom was home and helped us book a last minute hotel room when I called her in a panic after the airline was of no help. We got a good deal on Hotwire.com, but that was the best part of it. First, the shuttle that was supposed to run every 30 minutes took 50 minutes to show up. To add insult to injury, when we finally got to the hotel, a Weston in Reston Virginia, the problems continued. We asked the front desk for local menus of any place that was open at that hour (now 11pm). After first suggesting that we could run to their restaurant (they were about to close), where dinner for 2 would cost about $100, the woman at the desk handed us a few take-out menus, and when we went to call them, they had all closed at 10PM! After another frantic call to Mom (there was no phone book in the room), we got the number to a local Domino's pizza and finally got dinner at midnight. (A big thanks goes to my mom for helping us out even though we were whiny, cranky, hungry and very unpleasant to talk to!) As we went to turn in for the night, I went to use the toilet and discovered it was CLOGGED! So at 12:30AM, we had to get dressed again, pack up and move to another room. At least the second room didn't have a dirty wine glass by the door, and the toilet flushed. However, we're not too keen to stay at a Weston again.

We managed to get on a standby flight to Providence the next day at noon after the customer service person told us it was useless to get on the standby list. Needless to say, I was none to pleased with United, but was relieved to be done with airports for a bit.

When we arrived in Providence, my grandmother was eager to share with us some chocolates that her brother, Stig, in Sweden sent her in honor of Princess Victoria's recent wedding. She'd been saving them for our visit, and they were delicious!


We then went to Iggy's for chowder and clamcakes (something you must do once a year and then you can't stand the thought of them until the next summer).

The next day we went to Anne & Bill's wedding at the Squantum Club. Apparently she had some huge problems with the seamstress at the bridal shop she went to (The Wishing Well) and after repeated fittings, the dress was still not ready the day before the wedding! She had to go to a family friend who worked overnight to fix it, so it was a big relief to see her looking gorgeous in her perfectly-fitting gown! Here are the newlyweds.


Here we are taking cocktail hour outside to see the bay


As we walked back to the cocktail hour, we saw a crowd gathered outside. It was time to shoot the wedding cannon. Yes, CANNON! That thing may look small, but is is super loud when you're in its path!


Here's the action shot of the cannon


I'll update with another post about our island excursions to Plum Island and Block Island!