2011 Summer RV Tour: Cape Cod
2 July 2011. Location: Cape Cod (Provincetown).
Okay, technically it was 1 and 2 July, but 1 July was spent in our own personal Escape From New York to the Boston/Cape Cod KOA. The drive was mostly uneventful, although I'll say that getting the RV out of the New York City area (and no, we didn't drive in Manhattan, although that probably would've been an…interesting publicity stunt!).
Traffic, however, was terrible. We were heading out on I-95 across the Bronx area when our GPS, an RVND-5510 with the live traffic receiver, suddenly decided that we really needed to be on I-87. I had absolutely no clue: sometimes these GPS gadgets lead you to greener pastures, and sometimes just into a deeper pile of manure. Take the I-95 parking lot, or…
Well, I took door number two toward I-87, but we missed the first exit the GPS told us to take. I probably would've missed the next one, too, except I decided that when in Rome, do as the Romans do. So I closed my eyes (well, not really) and hauled the RV over into the right hand lane (although I have to say, nobody honked at me!) and headed up this ramp to Whatchacallit Street. All I remember is it was a steep climb up the exit, then we were under this rusty metal overpass thingy with steel I-beam supports all over the place that I had to weave through, making sharp turns while praying that none of the oncoming traffic would hit us. It sort of reminded me of Han Solo piloting the Millenium Falcon through the asteroid field in The Empire Strikes Back. Okay, maybe not that melodramatic -- Han Solo had it easier than me.
Anyway, the upshot was that once we were on I-87, it was pretty much smooth sailing the rest of the way. We ran into traffic here and there, but nothing too bad, and that little detour probably saved at least an hour's driving time. So, to the RVND-5510 GPS: thank you!
Okay, enough of that. We got to the Boston/Cape Cod KOA, and had our first (and I pray only) major "incident" for the trip. As some of the KOA's do, one of the staff was leading me to our site, with him in a golf cart and us all in the RV. I had to make a sharp turn to get into the site, and I felt a little…resistance as I made the turn, fortunately moving very slowly. When you feel something holding back a 24,000 pound vehicle, there's usually a problem.
In this case, it was our Honda CR-V, which some of you may recall is the replacement vehicle for our Nissan Quest that was totalled last September by an idiot who was texting while driving. For anyone who does that, please stop. Nothing you're texting is as important as your safety and that of the people you're going to run into. In our case, this guy's stupidity caused permanent damage to my right wrist, and could have easily killed some pedestrians he otherwise would have run into if he hadn't run into us first. It also wound up costing him the use of his car and thirty days in jail. So, don't text and drive. Please.
Anyway, I heard somebody shout something, which, unless they're shouting "Free BEER!", is usually another bad sign. So I put the beast into park and took a look.
Ugh. We had the CR-V still in its tow position behind the RV, and when I swung to turn into the site, I ran the poor car into a guard pole for the park's propane tank, which was low on the passenger side; I never even saw it. I'm not making excuses, just a mental note to really understand my surroundings every time we pull into or out of a site.
The good news is that nobody was hurt and there wasn't any major damage. I'm sure it'll cost a fortune to repair (hey, that plastic is expensive!), but a quick visit to a local dealer (Silko Honda treated us VERY well!) verified that there wasn't anything but cosmetic damage, and the car was safe to tow and drive. The guard pole was knocked askew a bit, but that could probably be straightened out by strapping all the kids at the KOA to it and having 'em do a tug-of-war.
I also readily took the advice of one of the Boston/Cape Cod KOA staff folks (who, by the way, were great about the whole thing): unhook the car near the office, and hook it up the same place (or wherever is safe and out of the way, but not in the camp site) when you leave. Gotcha.
The bad news…well, this is called a "learning experience." If nothing else, we met half the people at the KOA in the first fifteen minutes after I hit the pole, and we were instantly the most popular people there. You always have to find the silver lining…
After we recovered from the infamous pole incident, we headed off for Cape Cod the next morning (2 July).
And I thought traffic was bad in New York City, hoooowaaahh. There's only the one bridge to get across to the cape, and you and twenty bazillion of your closest friends all want to get there at the same time. Bring some popcorn to watch with the movie.
It was a long wait, but in the end it was worth it. After we got across the bridge, things sped up, and we wended our way toward Provincetown, which is at the very end of the cape. We had planned to ride our bikes along the dunes somewhere, then spend a little time in town before taking a whale watching cruise. Unfortunately, not having taken the horrible bridge traffic into account, we had exactly twenty minutes to ride our bikes before we had to get back to the pier for the cruise.
As the picture here gives the merest glimpse, Provincetown is one of those places you need to spend at least a full day or two, wandering around, doing some biking, and just generally hanging out. On the drive out there, we discovered that there are at least two RV parks actually out on the cape, and in a future trip we'll park the rig there to make the trip to Provincetown that much shorter.
Oh, before moving on to the highlight of the day, I should point out that we had lunch at a restaurant called Moby Dick's (yeah, I know: go figure) that was on the way along the cape toward Provincetown. The seafood there was really good. The only thing that was a bit odd (but not in a bad way) was that you order and pay for your food at the register, then they bring it out to you. I just had fish & chips (go ahead, say it: "Booooring!"), which were yummy, and Jan and the boys had other stuff that was quite good.
Now for the highlight of the trip: the whale watching. As my parents will readily attest, I'm not exactly a naturalist. But Jan signed us up for what has to have been one of the top ten whale watching trips of all time! We hopped on a big boat (one of the Dolphin series boats that puts out of Provincetown) and headed out, maybe thirty minutes or so, where there were maybe a dozen or so whales having dinner. Over and over again.
I put together a little video from clips I took with my iPhone. What you see in this video happened again and again -- I've never seen the like, and as you can tell from the gal on the PA system who was our "guide" for the trip, she thought it was pretty special, too!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xaAcUGqh4Q
After we got back from that little outing, we stopped at Twisted Sisters Pizza (sort of makes you wonder where the pepperoni is coming from, right?) for a quick dinner before making the drive back to the RV. Fortunately, there weren't a pile of people trying to get across the bridge at the time, but it was still a long drive. We got back late (maybe 10:30 or 11:00) and collapsed into bed.
Next up: Boston!
