As you know, in 2020, vacations are rare birds. In Rhode Island we live in the smallest state, it can be a little cramped here. For a long time, we haven’t been able to go to another state without having to quarantine for two weeks. On the positive side, the system has been working for the most part.

As lucky we are to have a vacation, it’s hard to balance that it’s simply going to be a different type of vacation.

We had plans to go to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania, but when that wasn’t in the cards, we went to Plan B – Block Island. It’s still in Rhode Island, so we don’t have to quarantine, and but it is far enough from everyday life and chores.

My wife has spent the summer on a Facebook group about the hundreds of glass orbs that are hidden on the island. Of course just a few days before we go, The New Times has to publish an article about the orb hunting. At least I scooped them by writing about the glass orb hunting in early July

We’ve been to Block Island many times. While we don’t always look for glass orbs, we usually do. We haven’t found any, but we were hopeful that with the focus on it this time, we’d come away with an orb.

Did we find one? Before I get to that answer, let’s get to the personal finance aspect of the trip.

My wife has renewed frugality these days. Work hasn’t been the greatest this summer and early retirement in a couple of years looks good to her. Part of the retirement plan is saving up a nest egg. It had been going really well with COVID because our spending has been a lot less. I think that’s encouraged her to see what’s possible.

With that in mind, we wanted to go as cheaply as we could. That’s a bit of a problem because Block Island hotels in the prime time of summer are extremely expensive. Many of them were built in the 1600s. The rooms are typically very small, so we need a suite to fit two adults and kids. Our favorite place is usually $250 a night while school is still in session in early June. We’re able to get a discount because we have stayed there multiple times and book a few days at a time. We never book over the weekend when the price jumps up a lot.

This time, we couldn’t manage all the cost savings. Our trip is shorter and it’s prime summer, not the shoulder season. Prices were above $500 a night, so we went with a cheaper place. We didn’t think it would matter much because we would be out hunting orbs for a day and a half. We were wrong.

The Old Bakery Inn Review

We got a big place that was dog-friendly. For just under $390, that sounds like a lot, but it’s about the cheapest place of its kind available. We wanted the dog-friendly place because that’s an additional savings of around $40 a night of dog sitting. Also, the dog loves the nature and the kids thought they might be able to train him to sniff out the glass orbs.

That was the good part of the Old Bakery Inn. Unfortunately, the bad was kind of tough. The building itself was built in the 1600s, so I am grading on a curve. I don’t mind that the stairs are all twisted with centuries of a moving foundation.

However, the bathroom was a converted kitchen. Thus the place was both for us. This is important because we had a plan to cook our meals. Eating out at Block Island is very expensive. All the food has to be brought in by ferry. There’s no fast food or a value menu to be found. There are a couple of places that may have a slice of pizza that is cheap. I have to look into that next time, but we are rarely in the mood for pizza after a hot summer day at the beach.

Getting back to the cooking plan, my wife was itching to use her Instant Pot skills (read her Instant Pot Review). She’s been following a Facebook Group all summer where people seem to make only two things – cheesecake and Mississippi meatloaf. I think they probably make more in this group, but those are the only two things my selective hearing has registered. (Do I score points for honest?) The Old Bakery Inn’s bathroom/kitchen had only a small fridge. There were bowls, plates, silverware, or even a small microwave to reheat leftovers. There were 3 of the plastic disposable cups, not enough for the 4 of us. It wouldn’t have taken much for them to add a few of these cheap things. The other place we stay has all this and a big fridge and a stove – and the bathroom is separated from the kitchen.

Additionally, The Old Bakery Inn had no wifi. I don’t think I’ve been to a hotel that hasn’t had wifi in more than a decade. I had my mobile hot spot, but my data plan was quickly at the end of the 8GB before it gets sent to a crawl until the end of the month. I have to type this review up in Notepad and edit it with links later.

There was also no coffee maker. What kind of hotel/inn doesn’t have a coffee source? I’m not a coffee person, but my wife is. Fortunately, she brought a cold press cup of some sort and was able to make her own. I had suggested that we bring iced coffee with us, but my wife wanted to try this. (This is an old Aruba travel trick we’ve used in the past. There was no Dunkin’ Donuts in California where we lived, but then went on vacation to Aruba there was one. It was a long walk, so we’d get enough iced coffee to last for a few days.)

There are actually two televisions, so the kids could watch a Phineas and Ferb marathon, while the adults can watch something else. That was a very good feature. We weren’t out hunting orbs as much as I thought we’d be, so it became necessary. Ironically, the kids had been watching all the Phineas and Ferb episodes anyway since there aren’t too many Disney+ cartoon shows.

We ended up doing fairly well in saving money on food. We brought our own beer and drinks (Diet Coke, flavored squishes like Mio). We brought our own milk for cereal. We brought a couple of reusable “Dixie-Cup” material bowls, which was perfect for the dog to eat and drink (and the kids’ cereal). As we were running out the door, I switched out the cooler to an old Brookstone picnic one I had gotten in college. It comes with its own plates, cups, and flatware. It served us well.

My wife packed a bunch of dry goods like chips, pretzels, nuts, etc. She also packed some cheese, butter, some pasta, 1.5 pounds of ground beef, and Kraft Mac and Cheese. This was enough to make dinner for the kids with the InstantPot. We had simple peanut butter and deli meats for sandwiches on the trail. We didn’t need to eat a single meal out, but we ended up eating a couple of them out anyway.

The first meal was when we first arrived. We didn’t have access to our room yet and we didn’t have a place to settle down for lunch. We went to a Mexican place, Calavaras, which has been a highlight in the past. Unfortunately, this time they mixed up my wife’s and my burritos. They wrote shrimp on the one that was pork. So she started to eat that one and I started to eat the other. It’s a very good thing I didn’t have a shellfish allergy. However, between the ferry ride and the shrimp, my stomach wouldn’t be good for hours.

I felt like complaining about spending $50 for the burritos (and the nachos for the kids) only to get a mixed-up order, but everyone is having a tough 2020 and it wasn’t going to make the situation any better.

The next restaurant visit was for drinks and a brownie sundae. The kids simply needed a break from orb hunting. My wife and I had one adult drink and the kids had juice. That ended up costing us $45. I’m tempted to go spend $45 at Burger King and take a picture of what it would look like. For kids would have preferred all that Burger King (spread over a week), but that’s simply not in the cards at Block Island.

We could go to the single grocery store on the island, but that’s expensive too. Maybe I’ll do a cost comparison sometime. For now, if we can bring most of our food, it’s better to avoid it completely.

Glass Float Hunting

It may sound fun to take a 6 and 7-year-old on a treasure hunt. It is fun. However, their legs got tired in the hot sun. Sometimes I got tired myself. Other times our 11-year old dog got tired. Because my wife is super-human, she never got tired.

I think we were out hunting for orbs for around 16 hours over the 3 days and 2 nights. What did we find?

Nothing. We found a lot of places where hundreds of orbs out there could be hidden, but no orbs themselves.

This was incredibly frustrating for the kids because they had just assumed that we’d find an orb. Although we tried, we couldn’t limit their expectations. At one point we walked about a half-mile to a lighthouse (you couldn’t drive there) that we received a tip on. It was a tough walk on squishy beach sand or slippery rocks if you went to the ocean. Doing all that work for “nothing” was the last straw for my 7-year-old. That’s really when everything started to unravel… and understandably so.

That’s when we settled on the before-mentioned brownie sundae. Sometimes life doesn’t work out how you want, but you pick yourself up and continue on. Next year, they’ll be a year older and more prepared to search longer and better.

I don’t like to an article on a negative note. We ended up recharging our batteries well. We came back home energized to get back to our day-to-day lives.

Today’s article is brief… expect a couple of longer ones next week and in the future as the kids go to camp (if camps still happen as planned)

So like everything in 2020, this is going to be a weird article to write. It’s especially odd because coronavirus cases are spiking across the country… except for two states, Connecticut and Rhode Island which are declining. We’re lucky enough to live in Rhode Island. We never got a big spike in our area and now things are on the decline.

I still don’t see nearly enough people wearing masks, but what’s in place is working as well as… what’s working in many European countries when you see the charts.

It’s so strange here, that we did something that few Americans can think about – go on vacation. Last week, we went on our annual trip to Block Island – a small island ~15 miles off the coast of Rhode Island. It’s only accessible by ferry and has a tiny population of ~1000 people. It’s where (allegedly) Billy Joel and Christopher Walken sneak off to if they want to get away from the celebrity life for a bit.

Block Island hasn’t a coronavirus case yet. (Now that I think about it, their “hospital” isn’t really much and I can’t imagine they do testing.)

In a role reversal, the bed and breakfast that we stay called us up and asked if we wanted to come this year. Their usual clients from out of state, couldn’t come as a practical matter, because of the state’s 14-day self-quarantine mandate.

So we did what the 30-year old song said to do:

“Sail away on the Block Island Ferry, leave all your troubles behind… take a trip back to carefree times.”

For the most part, it lived up to its promise.

Our Own Block Island Gotchas

This section is likely to go over like a lead balloon. After all, we’re already in the win column by having any kind of vacation at all.

It seems we weren’t the only people looking to take this trip. While we were able to book the hotel easily enough, the ferry itself wasn’t taking reservations for awhile. When they finally started, car reservations were filled up for the first day except for the last one at 7 PM. That would be a loss of a whole day of vacation. That’s significant when you are only staying 3 nights/4 days.

We decided to park the car and go across ourselves in the morning. I took the ferry back at 2 PM to pick up the car and bring that across to the island. I was originally disappointed by this run-around, but it’s the first 6 hours I had without the wife and kids in about 4 months. I was only disappointed that when I got back, everyone (especially my wife) was ready for sleep. I can’t blame her with two kids and the dog.

Before our trip, we got the news that my wife’s friend’s father had died. The funeral was the morning of the last day of our trip. We had planned to stay the full day, but we were able to change our ferry time and leave in the morning. (Few people leave the Block Island first thing in the morning – the ferry was almost empty.)

A four-day vacation turned into about a two day one. That’s still 2 more days than most people have during these times, but it was disappointing nonetheless.

The Block Island Vacation Itself

There isn’t a lot to do on Block Island. That’s kind of the point. There are outdoor activities like hiking, kayaking, and beaching. There are some nice tiny boutique shops. Finally, there are the restaurants. The outdoor activities are exactly the same during coronavirus – except that you bring your mask with you just in case. There aren’t many people around, so there’s not a big need to use it.

We usually go hiking and hunting for glass orbs. There’s a deal with the tourism industry on the island and a local glassmaker to hide around 500 of these on the island every year. They are extremely hard to find, and we haven’t found one in 4 years now. This year they weren’t hiding them until late July. Instead of hiking, we brought an inflatable kayak and took that out for a little while.

We didn’t get to do any boutique shopping. I’m not a big fan, but sometimes there’s something in the 75% bin that’s a good deal. The biggest reason why we didn’t get to do any is that our 6 and 7-year-old kids wouldn’t allow it without ruining the whole vacation. There’s simply nothing fun for kids in boutiques. If we had a longer vacation, we could have split up, but it didn’t work out that way.

The restaurants are very different during coronavirus of course. They were just starting to open up distanced indoor dining when our trip started. It didn’t seem like any restaurant operated the same way. A few took temperatures. Some took our name and phone number. Some had menus. Some asked us to take a picture of a menu with our phone and use that to order from. However, once again, many people don’t have an option to eat at a restaurant.

At the end of the day, the best thing about Block Island is simply unplugging from day-to-day life. It’s nice to not have to worry about a to-do list that never gets done or laundry, dishes, cooking, etc.

If we wanted to be more frugal about the planning perhaps we would have come back the evening before and saved the last night at the hotel. That would have saved us a couple of hundred dollars. However, we would had spent a lot of the last evening cleaning and packing for our trip, which would have cut down on our vacation further.