Miscellaneous – Page 115

The Park

May 14, 2016

We were the only guests last night, which meant the chef cooked just for us this morning. It felt indulgent 🙂

There’s a big park just down the road from the B&B with lots to see and do, including a highly rated zoo. The day was lovely so we walked there.

That’s taken in their limited ‘Birds From Down Under’ exhibit, where you could feed all sorts of Oz parrots. It was fun!

The rest of the zoo was great too, with a good selection of animals (including unusual ones like aoudad and takin) in a nicely designed space. It took us about 4 hours to see it all and was well worth the trip.

Afterward we headed just up a hill to a nearby museum. It wasn’t very popular but was air conditioned! The majority of the exhibits were based around a massive display of (admittedly impressive) stuffed animals:

But we were there to see the planet show! It was a smallish theater but I loved the show since it was focused on the night sky and the narration was wonderful. Plus we were sitting down in the AC for the first time in many hours 🙂

We also had planned on visiting the botanical gardens in the park but ran out of time. Too much for one day, I suppose.

I’m super tired now. It’s going to be an effort writing all these postcards 🙂

We Are Providence

May 13, 2016

We drove to Providence today, on day one of our little getaway. I’d been considering such a trip for years, but after recently reading the newly reprinted Ramsey Campbell book ‘The Thing In The Lake’ the trigger had been pulled.

It was finally time to pay my respects to Lovecraft.

The first stop was a wonderful store downtown that promotes the memory and legacy of H.P. Lovecraft, an author (mostly) obscure in his life but now recognized as one of the most influential American authors to have ever lived. His contribution to the genres of fantasy and horror can hardly be underestimated, and I’ve been a fan for about 30 years.

The store had some remarkable items, and the lovely proprietress gave us a map of providence with all the Lovecraft sights on it. Afterwards we walked a few minutes to a local library to see this bust (which had been partially funded by Guillermo del Toro):

And then we headed to our primary destination, the Swan Point Cemetary. Specifically this small and somewhat unassuming tombstone:

Lovecraft was poor in his time, and upon his death didn’t even get his own gravestone (the above was erected over 50 years later). Initially he was only on the Phillips tombstone, behind me when I took the above shot. (Yes, I placed the tiny Cthulhu on top, but you can see offerings left by others – including foreign coins.)

Ironically he wrote about this very cemetary in his stories, as he did about many other sights in Ptovidence. He was a somber man, very poor and (as he believed) unsuccessful. If only he could have known how famous he would one day be, and how in a cemetary packed with incredible edifices the one that most people would come to visit was the tiny stone with his name on it.

Mr Lovecraft: your imagination was boundless, your stories timeless and I’ll always be a fan.

It was late in the day when we finally got to our B&B and we’re gobsmacked by how beautiful it is!