Category: Trip

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!

That’s the dining room we’ll eat breakfast in tomorrow! Everything in here is beautiful, and it’s probably much fancier than I deserve 🙂

Tomorrow we’re off to the zoo, only a hop and skip from here. Expect photos of animals!

Ice Over

March 12, 2016

This was the view from just outside our cabin yesterday morning:

As you can see, the weather had cleared and the ice had receded. Shortly after taking that photo a curious boat cruised past:

Much later in the day we returned to find the view outside had changed significantly:

Look at all that ice! The person at the end of the dock is the proprietor of the motel, who was frantically breaking the ice sheet that had slowly drifted east across the lake and was now threatening to crush his docks.

He explained to me the boat I’d seen earlier cruised back and forth all day to create a wake to keep the ice sheet on the western shore, but it hadn’t been enough yesterday and he seemed quite concerned it would damage his property.

Afterwards we returned to Funspot and didn’t get back until dark. This morning the ice was on the other side again and the docks intact. I think they dodged a bullet!

That’s a 306 foot tall monument in Bennington, VT built in the 1880s to commemorate a battle that occurred nearby over 100 years earlier. That little silhouette at the bottom is KLS! There’s actually an elevator inside that takes visitors up to a viewing platform but it’s still closed for winter so we couldn’t go.

We had stopped there on our way home today from our short “lakefront video game holiday”. While the trip itself is done (and was great), there’s still one more blog post to look forward to…

Going East

March 10, 2016

We drove east today for a short vacation, our destination being Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. The drive was over four hours without stops, and we deliberately took the less-traveled road past the ski mountains in mid Vermont.

The weather was wet, the tops of the mountains very cloudy, and some of the roads took us through decidedly rustic locales. On the way, in a tiny village called Grafton, we spotted a Tardis on the side of the road. And I mean that literally:

We’re not sure exactly what this was, although my theory was a shrine to honor someone who had died on that road. It seemed like the door opened, and KLS was about to, but a car had stopped across the road and a lady was watching us like a creepy. We skedaddled!