on Cape Cod

Tuesday, October 4, 2016
West Yarmouth, Massachusetts
  on Cape Cod


We left Richmond on Saturday, October 1, about 3 p.m., with plans to get to PA as our first stopping point for the night.  Life, however, has a way of changing your plans.  What happened was that Virginia’s State Fair was in full force on the first sunny day since it began almost.  We sat and occasionally crawled in traffic on I95 North until we reached the exit that would take us to 301.  Wow!  We thought we had wisely escaped that mess, only to discover a line of cars for miles, all trying to go into the fairgrounds from the eastern entrance.  Once we got through that, it began to rain.  We stopped for dinner in Port Royal, VA.  Robin pulled into the parking lot of a long blue building, and I told him that it looked like a bar.  He went in to check it out and came back with a smile.  “Come inside.  You’ll like it.”  The opposite wall in the dining room was lined with windows overlooking the Rappahannock River, and it was very nice.  We ended up driving in night rain to Glen Burnie, MD, where we spent our first night.


On Sunday we got to the PA Dutch Country and decided to have lunch at Miller’s Smorgasboard, where we dined 31 years ago with Pattie, Tod, and Kerry.  It is quite the place—buffet tables loaded with creamed cabbage, pot pie, pickled beets and eggs,
eight wonderful soups, homemade iced raisin bread, meat, veggies, shoofly pie, etc.  I could not commit to the entire “smorgasbord,” so I got the soup and salad buffet, knowing that I could have the beets and eggs and delicious soups.  On the other hand, Robin didn’t want to miss a thing on the buffet.  It took us back in time to when the kids were young and thought eating at a smorgasbord was an adventure.

After that, we hit the backroads and enjoyed the countryside through the vast farmland that is that area of PA.  This is what we love to do when we travel—make vague plans and see what happens on the way.  That day we traveled in five states—MD, PA, NJ, NY, and CT.  We decided we wanted to get through NYC on Sunday night, rather than facing it on Monday morning, so we kept on.  I was grumpy because I don’t like to drive at night so much anymore; however, the approach to the Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River, and the beautiful lights on the bridge were breathtaking.  I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it.


We got into CT on busy I95 and got into traffic, so we pulled off at a rest area near Westport and waited until the traffic moved again.  As we prepared to pull back out onto  95, Robin was watching for oncoming traffic, and, as he began to accelerate, I saw something lying in the acceleration lane, just as he ran over it.  I told him it looked like a shovel.  Immediately, the car began to make a heavy clicking noise from underneath, and there was nowhere to pull off in the dark on this busy roadway to check it out.  I had visions of the tire(s) falling apart from hitting something sharp.  Eventually, we exited 95 into a small town that was closed for the night.  We pulled up in the parking lot of a men’s clothing store because there was light.  I looked under the car and saw a huge piece of hard plastic hanging .  I touched it and it wobbled.  My first thought was—where is Mindy when I need her!?  (Note: My friend Mindy and I were traveling from Hot Springs one day when something came loose under the car, and she was able to fix it with a string and a binder clip!  Another story.)  As I bent down to examine it, I started to laugh—it was a shovel—a snow shovel—dangling from something under the car!!  I felt such a sense of relief even though we were unable to pry it loose.  It was not slapping against the ground; instead, it was banging against the underpinnings of the car.  So we went looking for a place to stay and thought we would call Triple A in the morning.
This whole shovel episode led us to feeling grateful for the goodness of people in this world, in this country.  We stopped at a convenience store to inquire about a hotel.  A kind man in there, a customer, led us to the Fairfield Circle Inn that he said was clean and safe.  We wondered about the “safe” part.  Turned out, it was a lovely place to rest and regroup.  When Robin shared the shovel story with the clerk at the desk, he came out, dressed in his khakis and sport shirt, and tried to ease it out.  He suggested an auto shop down the street for morning, where they could put it up on the lift.  This eased our minds.  As we pulled across the parking lot, a small car pulled up along side us.  The young man opened his window and said, “Do you know you are dragging a shovel underneath your car?”  We explained the saga.  He was dropping his wife off to work the night shift at the front desk, he said, and he offered to help.  What he did was slide under the car on his back with little light and carefully maneuver the shovel out of its resting place beneath the muffler, he said.  What a kind young man, a Good Samaritan really, and he refused the money Robin offered him.  He also refused the shovel!!



On Monday we were off again, heading for Cape Cod.  We had a little side trip to Hammonassett Beach State Park.  Oh, my, how wonderful to dip my toes into Long Island Sound for the first time along this pristine beach.  The day was sunny and breezy, the water was clear and an azure blue, and we mostly had the world to ourselves.  I left the cobwebs right there on that beach—our first taste of the natural world and the freedom to relax!



In search of Newport, we happened upon the Country Inn in Warren, RI.  Lunch was a wonderful treat—the very best prepared clams I’ve had in years, not just the strips but the whole bellies!  We gave up our hunt for Newport and went on to Cape Cod, and here we are.  Last night we had a light dinner at Captain Parker’s Pub.  I had clam chowder—very good—and we shared a huge bowl of mashed butternut squash.  Robin enjoyed clam stew and stuffed quahogs, which turned out to be like a deviled crab, only clams.  In a few minutes, we’re heading toward Provincetown and Cape Cod National Seashore to see what we can find.