This week I’m attending my cousin’s graduation from the CIA*, and I decided to take a few days on either side to drive around New England. Sort of a CIA ramble.

I flew into Boston, rented a car, and drove to Newport, RI, where I spent the night in a motor-court-style motel that was probably built in the ’40s or ’50s.

The following morning I wandered around downtown Newport, which is a charming town full of maritime coloniality. And perhaps even pre-coloniality, due to this tower which was built by the Vikings. Or maybe the Chinese. Or possibly the Knights Templar.

Or maybe—just maybe—it’s the base of an old windmill from the 1700s.

Okay, no, that last one is just crazy.

Roadside America has the full story, including the theory of the proprietor of the Newport Tower Museum across the street, who thinks it’s a horologium—an astronomical clock—built by the British in 1583. The museum was closed, so I wasn’t able to talk to him, and as a result I’m not able to find any flaws in his theory. Can you prove it didn’t happen? No you cannot.

But I couldn’t hang around and wonder at horologia. Not when there was a severed arm waiting for me in Connecticut.

* No, not that one. The other one.