Episode 92 - Newport Harbor Lighthouse

0:00 Hi everyone, I'm Emily and I'm Vince and this is the lighthouse lowdown Let's go We haven't been here for a while back in the saddle this episode posts in two days. So that's incredible I know I gotta do some editing before then Yeah, I think I'm behind on YouTube Our listeners may have noticed a batch upload They may notice a future batch upload. Yeah, just so everyone knows, here's our announcement, is that we're taking off for the season. And we said we weren't going to do that, but wedding planning is a lot more than anticipated. And so something has to be sacrificed. Fortunately, that's the podcast.

0:49 My solo Edmund Fitzgerald episode. Yeah. Talked about, I gave a brief. That was the day of your bridal shower. Yeah. We're living in our in -laws basement. Thank you. We are planning our wedding, which is happening very soon. And 14 days. 14 days. That's crazy. We have a honeymoon and work is busier than ever. And we're also buying a house. So I joke, you know, these are all like. These are like the best things. Yeah. This is a time to look back on and be really happy. It's just a lot. Oh my gosh. I can't believe we did all that. Like in the moment it's like, ah, it's all good stuff, but it's a lot. So we are not going to stop the lighthouse slowdown. No, of course not. But we're going to take a break.

1:38 Like, yeah. Until at least a couple episodes. Yeah. But we'll see. We're gonna fill it out. We'll be back, but we are going to take the time necessary. And I know I said we weren't going to do that, but. We cracked under the pressure. Hopefully we come back really strong. I have an episode, actually I have a couple that I've been researching over the past couple months. I just haven't finished them to the point where they're worth presenting. Fine tuning. Just for our listeners. They can blame me for this. This next one was supposed to be mine. I'm prepared. This was supposed to be episode... 93 and it's 92 now and um it's a christmas central episode because originally this one would have posted on december 22nd but now it's posting december 8th which is fine still christmasy and um so we'll be coming back with our green island series after this and your episode awesome so i chose well you know how usually we do Christmas time at lighthouses at Christmas time? Yeah. Like every year? Uh -huh. Well, that's what I was going to do this year. But then only a couple of the lighthouses we've covered this whole year do anything for Christmas time. Really? They don't even do anything Christmassy. They don't decorate or have little events or whatever. So I couldn't even culminate a whole Christmas time at lighthouses episode. There was only like two

3:10 lighthouses that did something. Mentionable for Christmas. So we have to skip it. It's so sad. Bless you. But I've decided that since we can't make a full episode out of that, then I'll cover a lighthouse that really decks the halls for the holidays. Bows of Jolly? Exactly. Bows of Holly. What did you say? I don't know. Okay. Then we'll go back to our Green Island series after that. So it's a little blip. And I also, oh, also, and also, our giveaway is going to be when we come back. We promised a giveaway, and it was too much to do it right now. So we're going to come back. I have a vendor for swag.

3:56 A giveaway is coming up. We have some, yeah, it's happening. Yeah, it's happening. We did promise a giveaway, and it is coming, just when things are less crazy. All right. History buoy. I promised I was going to talk about this, I think, on the last episode. They've all kind of blurred together. Keeper Class Coastal Buoy Tenders is what we're talking about today. Keeper Class? Yes. Coastal Buoy Tenders. Buoy Tenders, yeah. Buoy Tenders are a type of boat, and Keeper Class is their type, which is pretty exciting. Keeper Class. It's a cool name. So this is a class of Coast Guard ship named after influential lighthouse keepers of the past. So they released them all. Can you go to our first photo, please?

4:42 And slide. Slide. And slide. Yes. So here's a picture. They all look the same. They just have different numbers. And they're all each named after a different lighthouse keeper. So these were all commissioned and completed between 1995 and 2000. And there are 14 of them in service. So I didn't know anything about this. It talks about like. the propellers and the rudders and the drive propulsion system. Yeah. You don't, do you know anything? Z drive? Nope. Okay. Well, I'm thinking about it for sure. I was like, Oh, I love it. And then it was just like, I don't know. I mean, it's a boat and we don't talk boats. I'm guessing it's the orientation of the drive shafts. Um, in some like road vehicles, they have a shaft that switches between, well, historically, between two -wheel and four -wheel drive to where you'd be driving just the rear wheels and then also the front wheels. I'm guessing they have propellers and the motor are oriented similar.

5:43 But I'm unsure. I have a picture. Actually, yeah. Can you go to the next one? Before we jump, can we talk about this one? For our listeners who are just listening. Oh, yeah. So the Tender is a really cool, very rugged -looking ship. Black paint on the hull. 551 is this exact number we're looking at. U .S. Coast Guard ship. I don't know the red, white, and blue stripe. Are you familiar with what that is? It's pretty cool. It's Coast Guard emblem. So they all have that same emblem on the side. Or maybe it's specific for the keeper class, but the photo that I'm going to show later, each keeper's boat has its own seal. Okay, we'll get to it then. And then I wanted to say it looks like there's a crane. Built into the front of the ship. And they have a cutout in the middle of the ship so that when they pull over a buoy to do some service on it, it doesn't have to lift all the way over the edge of the ship. It just goes through the middle. Really cool. Yeah.

6:41 So there's our propulsion system. They can rotate 360 degrees so that they can make really sharp turns. And it has a thruster in the bow, so they're unmatched in maneuverability. Like these are the keeper ships with really, really good. Movement. Go any direction. Movement, yeah. They each carry a crew of 24, and while they're not classified as icebreakers, they can travel through nine inches of ice at three knots. Oh, no. I didn't look up how many three knots is. Slow. I know, but fast for going through nine inches? I mean, yeah. In miles per hour. Also, nine inches of ice is a significant amount. Oh, three and a half miles per hour. Yeah, so walking speed.

7:23 Okay. Okay. All right. Well, to be honest, faster walking speed for us Americans. Yeah, that's like where 3 .5 is like where I start to have to decide if I want to jog or not. Little steps. Each one has a length of 175 feet, a displacement of 845 tons. And this is where I'm like, I don't know what this means. It says power plant to Caterpillar 3508 TA diesel engines. Hell yeah. Ulstein Z drives, 2040 BHP. Brake horsepower. Brake horsepower? So horsepower is force over a rate of time. So power generated from, say, a motor. Brake horsepower is how you, BHP is how a motor is tested. So a brake is applied to a shaft and under brake. What is the force that's applied at a rate of speed is how horsepower is measured. So those Caterpillar engines, Caterpillar is well known for making good diesel engines.

8:32 Oh, nice. They're huge in heavy on -the -road equipment and construction, as well as emergency power diesel generators that are the size of this basement. Oh, my gosh. Monsters. That's crazy. Thank you for adding that little bit of knowledge. You're welcome. They have a speed max of 12 knots. and a range of 2 ,000 nautical miles at 10 knots. So they're not the fastest of ships. They're not the fastest. They're not trying to get anywhere quickly since they're just like daily maintenance sort of things. But the maneuverability, and looking at the hull of the ship, it's like a V shape, but very, very subtle. Very flat bottom. So probably for maneuverability.

9:12 And stability, because if you're swinging a giant... buoy over the edge of your ship like you don't want to tip over it's maybe people who know ships would laugh at this but 800 and some tons yeah is a displacement i can't understand how much weight that is yeah it's like when people say like a billion of something you're like i don't yeah i don't know you know a billion a billion well it's like can you okay i mean i could break it down yeah Oh, like there was that one person who did grains of rice to show how much a billion dollars was compared to like the normal average. Yeah. Well, the exponential story, right? The, the chess board, you take a grain of rice and you double it every piece. Oh yeah. And you run out of all the grains of rice on earth by the time you get to the end of the board. That's crazy. Yeah. It's from a, that's a long story.

10:02 Also, one other fun example, won't say the numbers, but we were talking yesterday about, how expensive houses are in thousands of dollars increments. We're like this many hundreds of those thousand dollar increments. A thousand dollars is like a lot of money and then multiply it by hundreds. That's the biggest unit. I think I understand is a, is a thousand. Yeah. You can put them, you can put them together. You know, that's two or 5 ,000 or $15 ,000 car. Yeah. Once we start to get to the millions and stuff, it's like, I don't, I don't even know exactly. So anyway, Keeper Class Bowie Tenders are given the numbers.

10:43 We talked about this a long time ago. We talked about Coast Guard numbering systems. I can't remember what episode that was. I wish I'd made a note, but it's WLM 551 through 564. So that first picture I had must have been the Ida Lewis. Yep, 551. So that was the first one that they released, Ida Lewis. I didn't make notes about all these people because a lot of them are ones we're going to cover eventually when we cover specific lighthouses. Of course. So we haven't covered Ida Lewis, but she's like one of the big names of Keeper history. You'll see her everywhere. So very exciting. That one is stationed in Newport, Rhode Island. And then 552 is the Catherine Walker in New Jersey. Do you want me to list them all?

11:30 How many you got? 14. Yeah. Okay. Abby Burgess. 553 Rockland, Maine. Marcus Hanna, 554 South Portland, Maine. Let's see. Joshua Appleby, 556 St. Petersburg, Florida. Frank Drew. We talked about Frank Drew in our last episode, I think. Okay. I think it was last episode. Maybe the one before. I can't remember. They're all spread out, okay? I can't keep track of everything. 557 Portsmouth, Virginia. Anthony. Dang it. Anthony. Petite. I don't know. 558 in Alaska. Barbara Mabriti, 559 in Mobile, Alabama. William Tate, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Harry Clyburn, Galveston, Texas. Maria Bray, Atlantic Beach, Florida. Henry Blake, Everett, Washington. And George Cobb, which is 564 in St. San? San Pedro? California.

12:37 San Pedro. San Francisco. This is why I should never list things like this. I should have just posted it like, you guys can read. Whatever. San Diego. So what I was saying earlier is that they all have their own fun seals. Yes, okay. And so, yeah, go to the next picture. And I just put six of them on there, so. Ida Lewis. And I think the seals have something to do with the keepers, like their history and stuff. At least four of those names were women's names. Yeah. That's interesting to me. You started strong with women, I think, the first three. I probably did, yeah. Yeah, and then all the guys' names started coming up, and it's like just butchering them. Got a bowcat on the lap. Perfect thing to have going into our episode about... Newport Harbor Lighthouse which is also called Goat Island Lighthouse and it's very interesting because I've done a Goat Island Lighthouse and I was talking during the episode about how I kept seeing another lighthouse and being like this isn't the same right it's like a different lighthouse and it's not called Goat Island it's just referred to that like locally but the official name is Newport Harbor Lighthouse so we're gonna be covering that one today because it came up as a lighthouse that does big Christmas stuff. Oh, let's go.

14:00 Or at least mentionable Christmas stuff. Jingle jangle. Jingle jangle is so right. Oh, and Goat Island Lighthouse, the episode was last November. Oh my gosh. It just happened to be what we're talking about today. I thought it was interesting. Fun. Time is flying. So we have the photo pulled up of the map. The map. We are in Rhode Island. Newport Harbor has been... An important site of commerce since the early 1700s. And that's for stuff like sugar, molasses, shipbuilding. What else do I have on here? Whaling and fishing. So lots, lots of high -paying good stuff going on through this harbor. Nautical. Nautical. Isn't everything that we talk about? Anytime I see a wharf, I get excited. Yeah. We go to the wharf when we visit my grandparents. Oh, really? In Ventura, California. To be honest with you, it's like a mall. Oh. But, you know, like I bought jeans there. I bought a t -shirt. But I think of it as cool because it's next to the beach.

15:04 Yeah. Anyways, sorry. There's a wharf on the map here. Probably a real wharf and not a shopping wharf. I bet you there's a lot of shopping there today. The entrance to the harbor is marked with a small island called Goat Island. And they called it this because they would release their goats to pasture on the island. Nice. That's about it. That's where the name comes from? Yeah, that's about what you would expect. Why is it called Goat Island? It's probably because there's goats on it. Yeah, like Hog Island. Yeah, exactly. Because there were hogs. The Goat Island was ceded from Newport to the government in 1799 so that Fort Walcott could be constructed on it. Okay. And this was actually the fifth fort to be built on this island's history. Proceeded by Fort Washington, Fort Liberty, Fort George, and first by Fort Ann in 1702. So we've got a lot of history here on this teeny island that you can see on the screen if you're looking at our YouTube. Yeah. Very exciting. In 1823, Congress paid $2 ,500 for a lighthouse to be built on this little island. And so they went with a 20 -foot stone tower and a six -room keeper's dwelling.

16:15 And the fixed white light was lit on New Year's Day, 1824. Can you go to the next picture? Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, so this, I have something else to mention about this, but this was, I think, an etching of the original lighthouse. Original. Focus on original lighthouse. Yeah, black and white could be a photo, but I think you're right. It's a very domed square, so it's very flat on the front. I hate to do this to you. Do you know what's on top of the cupola? No, I have no idea. It looks like a little, like... Something you would lift stuff with. Yeah. Like a derrick. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But I don't know. In the background, you can see our keepers dwelling.

16:59 Yeah. Let's stop interrupting you. Unfortunately, Newport Harbor Light was not located in a good position to mark a shallow reef that was like just north of the island. Okay. So like it was doing a good job in every other way, but they didn't really. They didn't really foresee this little reef being an issue particularly. So while everything else improved, tons of ships started to run aground on this shallow reef because originally, you know, they'd give it a really wide berth, you know, when they're coming in with their ships. And then if they have a lighthouse there, they have this false sense of security where they can like hug the island really tight. And so they're hitting this reef every time. Sorry.

17:42 Huh? It's not funny. It's not funny. Not funny. They were probably all right. Just a lot of - If they were okay, it's hilarious. Yeah. A lot of money damage, I think, is the focus. A lot of lives lost, but a lot of cash lost. Within 10 years, it was decided that the lighthouse needed to be moved, so that's pretty quick in lighthouse terms. Short. They added a breakwater on the north side of Goat Island, so they're extending the lighthouse from the island out towards that shallow reef, so it reduces the - closeness of people like passing over the top some more space yep from 1834 to 1842 this was a very long construction period we're talking about what is that almost that's eight years i guess over 67 000 was spent on adding a breakwater and building a new lighthouse on the end of it that is a lot in the 1867 grand yeah and that's not even get about 10 houses back then dang it so real right now The original lighthouse was kept lit throughout that construction, so we still had a lighthouse. But until they transferred the lighting apparatus to the new 29 -foot octagonal granite tower, and the inside was lined with stone and a stone spiral stairway. Cool. Can you check if I put that photo in here? I did.

19:01 Yeah, stone stairway. Isn't that cool? So cool, yeah. Oh, that's an awesome photo on the left, too. Isn't that beautiful? Showing kind of the new keeper's house. Integral tower, it looks like. So the house actually came later. It used to just be the tower. So this is a, obviously, this was finished in 1842. So I don't have a photo of it exactly. Really cool photo of this one, though. Yeah, this picture is really nice. I like how they always have somebody standing in front. They did for the last lighthouse, too. Yeah, repping for scale. They always do. The old tower was dismantled in 1851 and rebuilt at Prudence Island, where it still operates today. So that picture that I had originally was probably on Prudence Island. Okay. That's where it was etched or whatever. Sure. So yeah, that one's still lit, and so is ours. In 1864, a keeper's dwelling was built against the lighthouse on the 20 -foot granite pier, and the old keeper's house was demolished and the cellar filled, so it's no longer... there in any capacity but that's probably close to when this picture was taken of our lighthouse 1878 1864 okay not 78 okay coming from nowhere 1869 a naval torpedo station was built on um The island to research and develop

20:32 torpedoes. And this became like a big torpedo station for like a long time. 1873, a fog bell and striking mechanism were added. So that's the building that's on the left in this photo. So this is probably that. So you actually, you were probably right about the date. You said 1878? Yep. This was 1873. So there's a possibility that that was about when this picture was taken. Interesting. 1891, we're almost to the 1900s. A clockwork was added to make the lighthouse occulting, flashing white for 15 seconds and dark for five. So now we have a flashing tower. I wonder which lighthouse was built that made it no longer a fixed white. There's always something.

21:14 I don't know. There's always another lighthouse that pops up that's like, okay, we need to change up our lights. I think that's a pretty unique pattern, though. 15 on, five off. Yeah, like on for a long time. Yeah, kind of fun. You're right, that is a fun flashback. Usually they're so short. Yeah, they're like quick flashes. 1906, a torpedo factory was built on the island and became the sole manufacturer for the U .S. Navy. So that's kind of fun. Torpedo. 1908, sorry, what year? In 1906. That's so early. Yeah, so we were already researching and developing torpedoes, but now there's a factory that's producing them exclusively. Interesting. In 1921, a 155 -foot submarine rammed into our breakwater. I'm like, what are you doing? Is it one of ours? Yes. Keep your eyes out. Windshield must have got dirty.

22:08 And it severely damaged the keeper's dwelling. So instead of rebuilding, they decided to remove the house and the fog building and electrify the lighthouse. So that ended the keeper's positions at our station. And I have a photo. Mind your torpedoes. Yeah, keep an eye out for your submarines. Keep your submarine away from the lighthouse. You know, that's the downside of submarines is they can't see lights. Lighthouses. You're so right. Because they're under the water. You're so right. Silly. It's like the one thing that would run into a lighthouse. You're so right. It's embarrassing. Even a plane wouldn't hit one. Yeah. I mean, it's unlikely unless there was an accident. The lighthouse was automated in 1963, but is still an active guide to navigation today. So that's fun because I've been giving you guys lots of lighthouses that are... Retired.

23:00 Ruins. A lot more than retired. Retired from life. Well, this one's still kicking. That's good. Yeah. Still flashing. What's the pattern today? Do you know? Oh, that's a good question. I want to say yeah, but that's because I don't have any other information. I like it. Could be different. Usually I check the USLHS light list, so I'm surprised I didn't this time. You know, things are just a little crazy. If you can't hear it, we are ragged. It's going so good. Am I doing a bad job? No. Oh. Just like my... Your eyes are sunken. I am sporadic. I'm sorry. We're going to look so tired on our wedding day. They're going to be like, what happened? I don't know. I don't know. Didn't you guys get married when you were 30? What is... Why do you look so old? Why does she have gray hair? Why do his eyes look like Kermit the Frog? It's fine. We're thriving. In the 70s, the area between the island and the lighthouse was filled. Too much excitement made me choke. Filled in. I just thought it was fun and then it got ruined. I'm having fun. And a hotel was built on this new land. Okay, I'm kind of. We'll come back to that interesting.

24:23 Did the submarine hit it? No. Maybe it was a blimp. He's losing it. The old sky submarine. Coast Guard completely renovated the lighthouse in 1989, which is early for a renovation. It is. Normally we see. That in the 90s, like late 90s and early 2000s. Yeah, it must have been one of the early ones in that big movement. Yeah, they must have liked it and focused on it. And was added to the National Register of Historic Places, like right before that. They leased the light to the American Lighthouse Foundation, which started a chapter called the Friends of Newport Harbor Light to maintain it. Let's go. So let's go. In 2005, the light was changed to fixed green. If you want to click. Oh yeah, clicking.

25:10 And that's a beautiful photo. It's not on, but you can tell that it's green from the way it is. Yeah. From the way that it is, the color that you can see. Really cool tree. Isn't it pretty? Yeah. And you can see that they added the land. It's no longer a breakwater. Kind of cool. The year after that, a restoration was done of the tower painting, repointing, and repairing railings. Repointing? Yeah. That's when they put new mortar, I think, between the bricks. Yeah. We mentioned that years ago. Because I was like repointing. That's probably supposed to say repainting, but nope. Cool. And apparently in 2018, the American Lighthouse Foundation did not renew their lease with the lighthouse. So it's unclear. Why? I haven't been able to find out who is maintaining it because it still looks good. And so like somebody's got to be. I mean, it could be the city. Oh, yeah. If it's, you know, it could be the friends of, you know, shout out. friends of xyz and lighthouses they're all over the place yeah like if a new chapter or a new yeah group came up but i'm curious everywhere i look it still says the american lighthouse foundation maintains it and so i wonder if in 2008 they didn't renew the lease and then maybe the next year sorry what did i say eight 2008 oh yeah 2018 18 okay i was gonna say too because that that's 20 years yeah but 18 is a couple But I wonder if they took back over again like in a later year or something. Yeah, didn't renew in 18. But another interesting piece of information

26:41 is that the Newport Harbor Island Resort, I think it's a Marriott or maybe a Marriott. Hyatt Marriott? I don't know why that's funny to me. What? I think of a resort, I don't think of the big names. Oh, yeah. But it's still, it's called the Newport Harbor Island Resort. But it's under, yeah, under the big name. but they refer to it as our lighthouse when talking about their annual Christmas lighting. Maybe they own it. So that's what I was thinking. I was like, maybe the land, maybe there, but it's still an active guide to navigation. So like what a hotel lease, a lighthouse. Well, hear me out. Okay. Hog Island, Paradise Island of Nassau, Bahamas. We know Toby Smith, who is the owner of the lighthouse. Unfortunately, it's doing. Very poorly right now. Oh, yeah, we lost the top. Yeah, it's in need of repair. Our lantern room plummeted to the ground in high winds. Everybody, give some love to our Paradise Island Lighthouse because it needs some eyes on it. It needs some eyes on it and some cash. Okay, so continue.

27:48 And you should go back and listen. We interviewed Toby Smith. He was really fun to talk to. Yeah. He was in a pretty tough time. We need to check in with him again. But I follow him on Facebook, so I keep up. technically that's another i would say active guide to navigation it was on and cruise ships are coming in and out of that port every single day yeah in nassau and um i forget which cruise line royal caribbean atlantic was was in a a legal battle that was discussed on our show also with toby regarding who owns that property yeah who has the lease rather for that property and so Or where the boundary is and whatnot. Yeah. So maybe in this case also, somebody may have lease or ownership of the actual property of the lighthouse, but it's accessed through the property of this resort. Maybe the resort owns the whole spit. Yeah. Or leases the whole spit. Who knows? Maybe. I don't know. All that is to say, active guided navigation and also in question of who owns it. Who's maintaining it. Because the actual lighthouse itself has to be maintained by somebody else. Otherwise it would. Coast Guard is only concerned with having the light on. And so if there's no one to maintain the lighthouse, they just put a light on like a little stick or a skeleton tower or something. I mean, I get how it happens, of course.

29:11 We don't have that much money to throw around. Anyway, annual Christmas tree lining. Annual. Very exciting. And that's what I wanted to focus to be on. Let's go. Can you go to the next picture? Oh, that's pretty. Isn't that beautiful? Okay, so we have lights going up and down each of the octagonal, what do you call them? Chrismas. Edges of the lighthouse. We have a wreath in the middle. We have garland all the way around the top along with more lights. That's beautiful. It kind of adds to more festive magic for the light itself to be green. So very beautiful. And that is thrown by the resort. So November 29th this year. So it's passed at this point, unfortunately. But you can go next year. From 5 p .m. to 10 p .m.

30:12 they had their event where the lighthouse was decorated with garland, a wreath, and Christmas lights. And the resort had carolers, warm drinks, which they said some spiked options, which would be important to me because that's how it's fun. Live music, treats, and a hot chocolate bar. And it was all free to attend. So you could just come out to the island and check it out. That's awesome. You know, I'm so interested in lighthouse tourism, right? Maybe there's a better word or phrase. But going to do things and making lighthouses a part of what you're doing. Whether it's in your town or a different country. I mean, I'm fascinated. Do you know, could you remind me the name of this? Do you have any more information on the resort here? Oh, yeah. Newport Harbor.

31:01 I lost it. Island Resort. Okay. And if you look it up, they have a really great website. And I think it's slightly bougie. I'll check it out. Okay. That's fun. I don't know. There's all sorts, like, how cool is that? Yeah. Especially if you weren't expecting it. You happen to be there November 29th and like, hey, we have a, you know. We have a lighthouse lighting. It's like, what? How cool is that? There was one time, side story. One time we took a flight. We weren't supposed to be on the flight. We had a different flight and we missed it. And so we're flying from Denver. No, no. We were in Vancouver, Canada. We were flying to Whitehorse, Canada. Okay. So we were going backpacking. It was this awesome adventure.

31:49 Oh, yeah. 2015. And before we got on, it's a long story. Before we got on the flight. um, there was like this little thing that got set up this table and these people came and there was a cake, a big chocolate cake, like four or five tiers. It was huge. And champagne was being poured. And we were like, Oh my God, someone's arriving. Like a VIP is coming or, you know, what's happening. It's this small, uh, small part of the airport, not a small airport. And then, you know, we're sitting 20 feet away. This, uh, uh, a lady event host comes over and says, if you'd like, you can go ahead and get chocolate cake now. And we're like, Oh, we're and she's like, no, no, no. This is the first flight. This is the inaugural flight for this or this airline flying this route. So we just accidentally and it was not cheap. Yeah, we got we got like there was a fruit tray. It was a whole thing. It was real informal, but they did. Someone stood up there and said something. And the captain, the pilot of the plane shook somebody's hand. Yeah.

32:50 And it was a not a long flight. But we we talk about. My brother and I still, how fantastic this flight was because they served chocolate cake again on the flight. Specifically because of the chocolate cake. So weird side story, but put yourself in the tourism lighthouse world. Get out there. Fun things are going to happen. It's like chocolate cake on a flight. So somebody, I bet you somebody had that experience. That day is why I say all that. It's just something totally random. Maybe they didn't even know the lighthouse was there. Exactly. Even just staying at the resort and then being like, is that a lighthouse out there? Like, whoa. Something so cool. And the resort's right next to it. So you see the flashing, the green light. Ooh, do they have lighthouse view rooms? You should stay there.

33:36 I bet you they do. If they wanted to reach out to us. Yeah. Give us a room and we'll cover more. You know? Yeah, we already did this for free. Dang it. Yep. That's what our podcast is. But anyway, the Lighthouse Lighting is only part of the Newport festivities for the Christmas season as they celebrate the 55th annual Christmas in Newport. So I have another picture pulled up. Newport is one of those places that goes absolutely crazy for Christmas time. This is just the wharf that we saw on the thing. Just the wharf. You don't say just the wharf. No, I'm just saying like, look at how many Christmas trees. There's a lot. How many are we on? One, two, three. There's a bunch of small ones. You got to count them all. A minimum of 15. And there are Christmas trees inside as well. Oh, shoot.

34:28 Yeah, you kind of can't. Christmas. Can't really count them all. So we've got door decorating contests. We've got holiday markets, lantern lit walking tours, which would be awesome. Light shows, mansion Christmas displays. I don't know what's going on in Newport, but apparently there's a lot of mansions and they do competitive Christmas displays where you can go inside and see their ballroom decorated for Christmas. See, that's where we need to be looking at houses. I will say, yeah. Wait, let me finish my list. Lots of workshops displays and anything you can think of in Newport for Christmas time. They've got it. Newport is a very heavy Christmas themed place around this time of year. So it's like when we covered Edgerton. Yeah. Or is it Edgar Town? Edgar Town. I can't remember. I know. But they went crazy for Christmas too. So it's like a small coastal town thing. Yeah. They go crazy.

35:29 I was going to say Christmas is, I mean, we're getting married. soon yeah we are and so everything's christmas right yeah and we're doing a mini honeymoon right after christmas themed all these things christmas is alive and well so many things people are complaining about that we've lost or that have changed or they're not like they used to be or now it's all corporate uh yeah people are honestly you're right but christmas is like one of the last things i think people are keeping alive you know they said uh they being the internet said something about why you know we look back at christmas our generation and we think man it used to be what happened you know like it was the warm light and all these events and the also the pumpkin patches and also the valentine's day at school and also well it's because our parents and the adults that were around made that real for us yeah so For the love of life, please, let's keep Christmas alive. Yeah, because.

36:30 For those who enjoy Christmas. That's true. Is that like when you were a kid, the magic was being made for you. And now that you're an adult, you have to make the magic yourself. Well, it doesn't mean you got to buy more presents. It doesn't mean you got to pay to get into more places. That's why we go to the Overland Park Mayor's Christmas tree lighting every year. We do. Because it's just like the best way free to kick off the holiday season. Like you just go and they. make a big deal on stage about flipping the switch for the Christmas tree. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, you just have a drink and take pictures and have dinner. It's nice. Absolutely. That's what Newport Harbor is doing. It's keeping it alive, making the magic themselves. So yeah, that's the end of my episode. Well, thank you and Merry Christmas. You're welcome. Merry Christmas, everybody. We're going to see you after the Christmas season. We're going to be Mr. and Mrs. Bailey at that point. That's crazy. That's crazy. Our podcast has gone through almost all the seasons of our relationship, and now we will be one, one flesh, as they say. Yes. And, you know, speaking about kind of recording our relationship and what we've done together, the couple of different studios we've had, all the adventures, people we've met, thank you all for being a part of it. We, even if this goes offline someday, You know, Emily and I are not doing this anymore.

37:55 YouTube is gone. Whatever. Podcasts are dead. We will always have this. Yeah. We're going to have these and you all were a part of it. So thank you for being here. It's really special. That's so sweet. That's like, that's a good new year send off because we're not up here for New Year's either. So everyone enjoy the rest of your 2025 and we'll see you guys next time in 2026. Lighthouse. Lighthouse. Lowdown.