[Journal entry for November 24, 2017; Fort Adams Bay Walk, Newport Rhode Island] Dallas and I parked in main lot of Fort Adams State Park, just north the toll house on Fort Adams Drive. No fee was being charged on this late-November Friday. The day was cold, windy and clear. We hiked the Bay Loop, which follows the shore of the peninsula on which the fort stands.

We immediately came upon a spring that flows from the hillside below a soccer field west of the road. It bubbles from the ground and flows through a stone-lined ditch before disappearing into a drain. A small windowless brick building sits across the road. Perhaps it is a pump house for the municipal water supply.

The path takes us north along the shore, past a marina. Many anchor buoys are still floating in the water of Brenton Cove, but most sailboats have been moved to storage for the winter. A row of dinghies are piles up on a floating dock. We can see the castle-like mansion of the New York Yacht Club, directly across the cove. A large square-rigged ship, the Oliver Hazard Perry, is docked on a pier at the north end of the marina. The Park’s Visitors Center is nearby; Dallas and I stop in and buy a cup of coffee.

The path took us between Fort Adams and the stone sea wall. The high walls of this Civil War era fort are built of large beige granite blocks, which according to a sign, were hauled in from Maine. Most of the windows (gunports, I guess) have been bricked over. A few years ago, when Dallas and I visited Fort Jefferson, a fort of similar design in the Dry Tortugas Florida, we learned that rusting iron had to be removed from all the openings, lest its expansion crack the walls. The seawall was composed of red sandstone that I suppose came from the Mesozoic-age Connecticut Basin. I poked around the blocks, looking for dinosaur footprints and other fossils, but found none.

The point has a spectacular view of the Claibourne Pell suspension bridge, which ties Newport to adjacent Jamestown Island. A cargo ship, the BBC Luanda, was anchored in the bay, between us and the bridge. We rounded the point and headed south. The path, originally just a little above sea level, has risen substantially, and is now separated from the water by a low cliff of black slate. Fort Wetherin, on Jamestown Island, is directly across the bay from us, but while we can make out some buildings above the rocky cliffs on that island, we cannot identify the fort.

The path then cuts across the base of the peninsula. We passed a small concrete observation post. While old and vine-encrusted , it looks to be younger than the fort. Perhaps it’s of World War Two vintage. The path takes us by a wide lawn hosting Eisenhower House, a beautiful late Nineteenth Century mansion that was once the summer White House of that American President.

A few minutes later we were back at the car. We drove over to the spring and spent a few minutes measuring it flow rate and temperature.

About one and a half hours.