We left New Jersey in the rain. Marcus and I went out to hook up the trailer to the car and in that 10 minutes we were both soaked! At some point we had lost one of the pins to the sway bar, so Marcus felt it was more dangerous to have it on than off. We were headed off for a fun drive! We were following Lowell and Elyse. The traffic was heavy, the rain was heavy, the wind was heavy, the trailer was heavy... we were slow. It was very hard to stay together! We were on our way to Cape Cod, with an overnight stop to visit Janet, a friend of Elyse's and take her to dinner for her birthday. We got to Janet's place and quickly set up our trailer in her neighbor's driveway. Then we headed out to a Thai restaurant for dinner. I was a bit worried that the boys would have a hard time finding something they liked, but they did just fine. Lowell and Elyse made a big announcement at dinner. Apparently, they had become engaged in the spring and were waiting for the right moment to tell us. Wow! big news! We are excited for them and wish them the best! That night we slept in our little trailer in the rain. It had become home to us. The next morning Janet made us a pancake breakfast while Marcus and I took down the trailer in the drizzle. It seemed we had set up under a tree that dropped lotsa little berries in the wind and the rain, leaving little berry stains all over the car. They didn't seem to want to come off really easily... That was going to be fun to clean! We headed back in for breakfast and had a nice visit before it was time to depart for Mystic Seaport and Cape Cod.
Mystic is a historical seaport village that has been turned into a living history museum. There are ships, shops and shows. There was plenty of hands-on stuff for the boys to do. Colin made a sailboat, Derek tried his hand at knots and various games of the times. We all explored an old whaling ship that was being refurbished and learned about the whaling times. The boys and I were in a play. It was almost all good: We could have done without the drizzle. After Mystic, we headed to Cape Cod to set up camp. The rain was picking up. We set up the trailer in the dark and the rain. We couldn't imagine Lowell and Elyse and Micah setting up a tent in the rain... yuck! We had them join us in the trailer. They took the boys bed, Colin slept with us, Derek took the table bed, and Micah had the floor. We were all damp. It was crowded, but it worked. We had a funky, makeshift dinner and called it a day.
The next morning we awoke to be greeted by... you got it: more rain. Ok, it was mostly drizzle, but still! This was our time in Cape Cod! We found a place to go out (or should I say in ) for breakfast. Next we were off to explore the Cape. Apparently, Obama was visiting Martha's Vineyard at the time, so we decided not to go there. We stopped at several beaches and watched the wild surf. We headed into Province Town where we climbed the many steps of the Pilgrim Monument. Or at least most of us did. Derek stayed in the car. He was boycotting history. He was done with it. He'd seen enough! The view from there was spectacular, but the winds were very strong and the rain would spray you when you were least expecting it. That evening we dined out again. The place had an old boat filled with water, displaying a bunch of live lobsters. The boys and I went and named many of them. Our favorite was, The Claw! He was huge! None of us had lobster that night, we couldn't quite bear to kill any of them.
The next morning was even rainier than the last few! We had a hurried breakfast in the trailer and did our take down in the rain. We were heading for Plimoth Village. And yes, I know I spelled it with an i instead of a y, but that is how they spell it. It seems that both ways were used historically, and they chose to use this one for the Village. This was to be another hands on historical village. It wasn't so much. It was more demonstration, but there wasn't much the boys could actually get their hands on. Colin was a bit disappointed, and as I said, Derek was done with history anyway. The village was set up as it would have been. Chickens ran freely. The rustic buildings were open with people portraying what the Pilgrims might have been doing... cooking, gardening...I found it quite interesting. The Mayflower 2 was cool. It is a replica of the original and it is amazing to think of so many people living for so long on such a small ship. And to think, they spent most of their time stuck in the smelly, dark hold. Wow!
For the grand finale, we went and saw the Plymouth Rock. It was underwhelming. No one is precisely sure that this was the actual rock anyway. It was broken at one point and cemented back together. Besides the fact that the Pilgrims first landed on a little island off shore. Other than that... it's a rock!
We said our farewells to Lowell, Elyse and Micah. They were off to a trip to the Galapagos and we were headed to Boston. We had enjoyed our time at the Cape, but we could have done without the rain, rain, and more rain!
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