The Newport scene

We spent Saturday morning in Newport at the SVF Foundation's farm, which houses the Smithsonian and SVF Biodiversity Project.  The project's mission is to prevent the extinction of as many livestock breeds as possible.  They use liquid nitrogen to cryogenically preserve the semen and embryos of rare and endangered breeds so they would be able to bring them back if that ever became necessary.  They are open to the public on only one day each year, and we happened to visit Newport at just the right time.

There were demonstrations of the cryogenic freezing process, and several endangered breeds of cattle, pigs, goats, and plants were displayed.  Lots of families came out, and the event was very well organized.

We also visited the Newport Car Museum.  Unlike many such exhibits which feature vintage automobiles from the early years, this one displays the most impressive examples of the past fifty years or so - beautiful European models from Ferrari, BMC, Lamborghini, Porsche, Jaguar, and Mercedes Benz, as well as large galleries of Shelby/Ford cars, fin cars, muscle cars, and Corvettes.  Some of my American favorites were Shelby Cobras, Corvette Stingrays, and a Dodge Viper.  But for me, the truly magnificent sculptural examples of the automotive art have been European - Jaguar XKE, Turbo Porsche, Mecedes Benz 300SL, various Ferraris, and many others on display there.  Certainly the most exotic automobiles ever produced, in my opinion, were made by Lamborghini, including the sexiest car of all time, the Lamborghini Countach.  If I ever win the lottery ...

Of course at my age, before plunking the money down, I'd have to make sure I was able to get into and especially out of the driver's seat.  Without assistance.

We had time for one more mansion visit, this time to the Chateau-sur-Mer, the family home of William Wetmore, who made his fortune in the China trade.  It was built in 1852, much earlier than the first two we toured.  At one time it was the largest home on mansion row, but the later palaces were much more colossal.  As it turned out, this one was our personal favorite - more intimate, less intimidating, with lots of beautiful woodworking details.  You could almost imagine living there.

And since this mansion was less well attended than the other two, we had an actual tour guide instead of earphone descriptions and instructions.

Newport is very active in the summer, very quiet in the winter.  We are here just before all the schools are out, so I assume it will get more crowded in the weeks coming up.  At present the traffic flow is rather slow at times, but not horrible.

The historic Newport Jazz Festival is scheduled for August, the Newport Folk Festival for July.  The Newport-to-Bermuda sailboat race began this weekend.  The people who live in Newport are almost universally crazy about the place.  They say that in the winter many of the restaurants and shops close, but even then it's a beautiful place to call home.

We like Newport quite a lot and attended a couple of open houses to get an idea of what prices are like and whether there might be a neighborhood meeting our needs.  One of the homes we walked through was very attractive, close to the waterfront and to downtown, with a list price that was fairly high but less expensive than it would be in Santa Cruz.  I think Nancy is slightly less enthusiastic than I am about Newport, but I'm going to add it to our list of possibles.