Every story needs a beginning and I’m convinced that Rhode Island has a way of turning every visit into a story worth telling. In 1997, my then boyfriend surprised me on my birthday with a road trip and a long weekend in Newport. On that early Friday morning, with a coffee mug and a hastily packed duffle bag in my hands, after rescuing the car from Manhattan’s alternate side parking within seconds before the ticketing agent took out her pen, I began my first visit to The Ocean State. Our first stop, according to my partner’s secretively-researched itinerary, would be…
