Updated July 2022
July 24, 2018
After three days of tropical moisture and trade winds a la Miami, I recall what “100% humidity” is really like. You can slice it! We move slowly. Here I am in New England, where Rhode Island and Massachusetts meet off the Atlantic Ocean, and I am preoccupied with the tropics. The tempest was fierce overnight until, suddenly in an instant, as if a Higher Power had snapped her fingers, it was silent. Such is the life adjacent the ocean, where nature is in charge.
In this peninsula south of Interstate 195 connecting Providence, Rhode Island and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, I am reminded of both the Chesapeake Bay, where creeks, shoreline, and scenic villages intertwine, and Normandy, France, thanks to the endless granite boulder hedgerows marking farms and estates stretching down to the sea. Shingle saltbox residences, clapboard 19th-century farmhouses, and early 20th century Craftsman cottages dot the winding stretches of landscape. I’ve been coming here regularly since 2005 and each time I happily sink deeper into the local culture and simultaneously discover more of myself.
The “Farm Coast” is a sheltered hideaway for city dwellers from Manhattan to Boston who live among the locals on weekends, summers and occasional getaways in their second homes or rentals. For the incidental tourist, there are only a few choices on Airbnb and VRBO lists, and the rare inn, like the funky Paquachuck Inn at Westport Point, a fishing village and Atlantic Ocean getaway that most of the world hasn’t discovered. Those in the know are delighted about that. Tucked between Rhode Island Sound and Buzzard’s Bay at the southern tip of Massachusetts, Westport Point is a 75 minutes directly south of Boston. Accessed by route 88, its rivers, estuaries, and wetlands are fed by ocean tides that raise the water along the marsh grasses 2-3 feet each cycle, then recede to permit quahoggers to wade ankle deep and dig hard clams for dinner.
The best way to explore is to pick up a Farmcoast Trail brochure at markets or retail shops and map your own day trips through the villages, farms, beautiful scenery, lives lived off the water and strengthened by superb, carefully preserved natural resources.
The entire Westport, MA/Tiverton, RI peninsula consists of many historic villages and fishing towns dating back to Plymouth Colony and connected by winding roads. This fertile region also produces food crops and vineyards with a genuine sensitivity to preserving the land and nurturing organic culture. On a summer weekend, church fairs and town carnivals dot the landscape with quilt and pottery sales and smokey barbecues. From the Sakkonet River in Rhode Island on the west to Buzzard’s Bay on the east, villages like Tiverton, Little Compton, Westport and South Dartmouth offer food, friends and R&R. Sea and land dominate serving up lobster, haddock, striped bass, shrimp, locally harvested farm stands, cheeses, vineyards and one brewery. Access to the water, beyond the one state beach, a few public boat launches and some hidden coves, depends mainly on who you know.
Here are my regular “go-to” places, 20-30 minutes north, east or west:
- Tiverton Four Corners, RI – over 20 shops in an historic 18th century New England town, with one stop light and a half mile of activities, walkable in all directions. My “best of”:
- The Cheese Wheel Village Market (over 150 artisanal cheeses, local meats and produce) – 3838 Main Road, (401) 816-5069, thecheesewheelri.com
- Tiffany Peay Jewelry (beautiful hand made jewelry, delicate gold chains and precious/semi-precious stones by a fine artist) – 3848 Main Road (401) 816-0878, tiffanypeay.com
- The Cottage at Four Corners (sophisticated yet New England coast-casual home furnishings and gifts, welcoming staff popular among the locals for their impeccable design tastes) – 3847 Main Road, (401) 625-5814, thecottageri.com
- Gray’s Ice Cream (homemade, ample surveys, don’t be deterred by the line!) – 16 East Road, (401) 624-4500, graysicecream.com
- Central Village, Westport, MA – and my “best of”:
- Lees Market (retail grocery with extensive wines/beer selections from around the world) – 796 Main Rd., Westport, MA, (508) – 636-3348, www.leesmarket.com
- Country Woolens Inc (women and men’s casual outdoor clothing with upscale brands like Woolrich, Merrell, Keene, Northface, Toad & Co. and a delightful children’s shop with clothing and toys for the kids and grandkids – 842 Main Rd., Westport, MA (508) 636-5661, www.countrywoolens.com
- Partners Village Store and Kitchen (fantastic independent book store, thoughtful gifts and toys, cards and cafe) – 865 Main Rd., Westport, MA, (508) 636-2572, partnersvillagestore
- Westport Point, Westport, MA – walk down along the rows of homes in the nationally registered historic village that flanks the tributaries of the Westport River and forms the heart of the Westport commercial fishing industry; enjoy sea to table oysters, seafood and other light fare at Westport Sea Farms, 6025 Main Road, Westport, MA, (774) 309-3056, westportseafarms. Or cross the river bridge toward Horseneck Beach on the ocean and eat at The Back Eddy, a busy restaurant stalwart of more than two decades with the freshest seafood and local produce with outdoor decks along the Westport River marinas, 1 Bridge Road, Westport, MA, (and for GPS purposes, use 4 Cherry & Webb Ln, Westport, MA 02791), (508) 636-6500, thebackeddy
- Padanaram Village (South Dartmouth), MA – several blocks of delightful retail along the Apponagansett River on land once a settlement of the Wampanoag Indians. I always drop in Flora Home (home furnishings) and Flora Style (specialty women’s clothing), and frequently stop in for coffee, gourmet takeout or specialty produce, meats, cheeses and wines at the Farm & Coast Market, 7 Bridge St., (774) 992-7093, farmcoastmarket
July 25, 2018
The fog is heavy this morning. The air remains still. 98% humidity – might as well be 100 or 200%, and without air-conditioning, everything stays damp. Good aspect is that we don’t need an iron (and we don’t), because hanging clothes in the air cold-steams out the wrinkles, nor moisturizers, our skins reflexively drinking in the naturally moist air. No labels! Just O2 laced with large quantities of H2O.
A light breeze starts, then subsides. For my writing morning, my companion is The New Yorker Radio Hour, where authors Tom McGuane and Callan Wink are talking about writing while fly casting in Montana. Excerpt:
- At this age I don’t want to get obsessed with anything – I like the world too much. McGuane.
- Are you on that everyday writing thing? asks his acolyte Wink. I find that when I have a month, I go great but then if not, it’s really hard to jump back in.
- That’s the reason for everyday work hours, McGuane counsels….John Cheever said all writing is improvisatory. You don’t need an idea, you just need to go to work…Waiting for a good idea is one of the subtle forms of procrastination…At 76, I feel that not writing is throwing myself away.
July 26, 2018
It’s one thing to roam around with locals, but when you’re on your own here (and I’m just sayin’), Google maps are a welcome invention. Here along these winding byways where “Drift Road” and “Main Road” corkscrew across state lines in this peninsula, I am grateful for order – especially in the instant in which I am going north when I thought I was going south. Wayfinding in this geography is not intuitive, even with a good sense of direction.
Today the real world interrupted, and I Googled “UPS near me” and “CVS near me” and, yes, as long as I had broken the spell, “nail salon near me.” En route, I discovered “post office near me,” which was a good thing since I had not packed any personal checks and was in a pickle. Mail order was a quaint but necessary 20th-century solution – and the local PO delivered just up the road in a neighborhood strip mail.
The streets in seaside byways have a curious parallelism. There is “County Road” and “State Road.” The locals know the difference, but I don’t. I’ve finally learned, after repeated trips, to take the third “Drift Road” off the main highway. Such insights collect in my travel toolkit.
Life on or about the water is like that. People come here to get away and aren’t thinking billable hours as they wander along the byways. It takes some unwinding to reactivate all my senses. In the distance, where channel islands break to the Rhode Island Sound, something large and sparkling looms west to east – could it be the top decks of a cruise ship? While I am watching that subtle action on the horizon line, someone flips a kayak steps away from me at the brackish Westport River’s edge – and uprights again with a hoot of accomplishment. Next an unseen motor hums just out of vision, a small boat shuttling visitors to a remote beach for a cookout or to dinner up the river with friends. All timed with the almost-full moon.
The evening breezes have died down again. The sky is semi-clear and we are between unseasonal tropical storms. I sit in the quiet on the deck, just after dusk with a refilled glass of Provencal Rose, and toast today’s restorative journey. A mist steams up from the river’s surface, enveloping and stilling everything.
July 30, 2018
Everyone on the aptly named “Farm Coast” in southern Massachusetts and Rhode Island seems to be a gardener of sort. From the big farms producing the farm stands, markets and farm-to-table restaurants, to the sideyard plot of peppers and tomatoes to the porch baskets of crafted lettuces, lovingly tended raised beds of cucumbers and granite rock herb gardens. Yesterday, stopping in at Peckham’s Greenhouse, we learned how to grow a climate-compatible species of artichoke.
My friends talk about spending several hours each day in the garden as if it were a European adventure. Having pulled too many weeds at a tender age, I never saw the point – until now. Would a pot of parsley possibly grow on my sunny deck in arid California? For lunch, the deeply flavored tomatoes from the vine hold their own against feta cheese, purslane and a home blend of balsamic vinegar and olive oil as multi-faceted on the tongue as a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. I dress a few lettuces and the wind blows them from the dish into my lap – I don’t think I’ve ever minded less having vinaigrette stains on my white shorts. I could care less that the sun bleaches my hair or my nail polish chips; I’m far more interested in a new warbler and the Robins poking in the grass for insects.
On this last magnificently beautiful final day of a weeklong getaway, the blue-green striations in the river change from darker blue at the edges to light teal in the channels and chartreuse green where the seagrasses and adjacent granite boulders have formed tiny islands populated by osprey nests. Osprey dart in and out of the six nests. We saw them up close the other day while as we meandered up the river at high tide. Now we trespass into their front yards, and the chatter of their sentries becomes loud and urgent (“intruders!”). We anchored at “boat beach” where our ocean-swimmer dove in for 30 minutes of lapping while staying in place against the strong incoming current, while the rest of us collected tiny “baby boat shells,” a kind of snail. We chatted with a fisherman who had hauled in a 4-pound something or other with a localized slang name that we couldn’t understand.
Today my biggest concern is whether the clouds on the distant horizon will transform into a storm and douse my plans for my final beach walk – or whether that wren whose chirping is so annoying at 5:15 am will return for a last goodbye from the bird feeder.
The other evening I volunteered at a fundraiser for a favorite local philanthropy. Five of us populated the crostini assembly line – a dab of soft goat cheese, then a stripe of homemade pesto, topped by a sliver of sundried tomato. We must have produced 500 in one hour, along with two other appetizers. Every dab and slather seemed to have meaning and purpose.
At the center of the hosts’ sprawling Great Room was a long narrow table for 18. It was designed in convivial Julia Childs’ style so that people sat “elbow to elbow and knee to knee.” Outdoors under the bayside tent, laughter and warmth exuded among the guests, casually upscale in linen and sandals, Old Money, people who contributed to protect this special place. After a long spell near “new money” Napa Valley, the discretion and shared community were refreshing.
