We're Going to Newport!

OWTK is heading back to Rhode Island in early August for the Newport Folk Festival! Long time readers of Out With The Kids may recall that we've taken the Bear to a pair of Newport Folk Fests in her young life (at age 5 months and then again at age 1 1/2). Back in 2006 I wrote pretty extensively about the experience of taking kids to the Newport Folk Festival for two days of rock-n-roll and now we get to do it again with two kids which no doubt will yield another looong post. While the headliners, The Black Crowes on Saturday and Jimmy Buffett (what?) on Sunday, are curious selections at best the rest of the lineup this year is pretty stellar - Levon Helm, Cat Power, Calexico, Gillian Welch, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, She & Him (M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel), Avett Brothers, Felice Brothers and Jakob Dylan (solo) among others. I'm hoping they manage to add Elvis Perkins to one of the side stages - that'd be cool 'cause he'd be perfect for that vibe up there.

The 2-day passes are quite a bit more expensive now at $140 a pop ($30 for kids ages 2 to 12/priced at $15 a day - no discount for a 2-day pass for kiddies) as compared to $95 just two years ago and even cheaper when we went in '04 and '05.

Staying in Newport proper is out of the question (rates from $450+) so we will assume our usual sport near the Providence airport where prices are less than 1/3 of what they are in Newport and the drive is an easy 30 minutes.