A fitful night led to the discovery that at seven o'clock in the morning, the temperature was a measly eight degrees Celsius. That's winter weather, that is. Still, it was dry and the shower water was hot, so it wasn't all bad. At least the sun was up.
I happened to speak to a couple who where camped up the way, who I knew to be Brits because they had a couple of UK registered motorbikes parked outside their tent. They were on a coast to coast tour of the US and Canada, having had their bikes shipped to Halifax in Nova Scotia from Southampton. They'd already been been to Vancouver and were on the last few stages of their return to the UK, heading first into the Adirondacks in New York, then to a cottage by the sea in Maine. They were a lovely couple, so adventurous and clearly older than me! Even in my youth I'd never have done a trip like that but this, it seemed, was one of many for this couple. It was lovely to talk to them.
Mrs T and I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before rousing the tadpoles and breaking camp. By some strange influence, we had hitched, dumped the tanks and were turning out onto the road at ten-thirty, which was some kind of record I think. Today it was a four or five hour run to Middleboro, Massachusetts, where the KOA campground stands midway between Boston to the North and Cape Cod to the south. The nearest coastal town is Plymouth, of Mayflower fame, which will be nicely comforting for Mrs T as she is a Plymouth girl herself; not Mass. you understand, it's Devon in her case.
The initial route took us along US20, a switch-back road through the hills heading towards Albany in the Hudson Valley. It was a lovely run in the sunshine and the Toadmobile was showing a very creditable gas mileage of 15.7 litres per 100 kms. I don't know what that is in miles per gallon but as we normally average about 19 or 20 lphk, that was pretty good, especially given how hilly it was. We dropped down to Albany, joined the Interstate system again and crossed the Hudson River on the Berkshires Arm of the New York Thruway as we made our way to Massachusetts. From the river we started climbing again, this time into the Appalachians; not a steep climb but it was long, over the State line and ever upwards, now on the Massachusetts Turnpike, or the Mass Pike as it's known. We normally cruise at around 60 mph but the hills were lowering our speed, not dramatically but we were down on our average. The gas mileage went up, too, but not as much as you'd think. The summit of the Mass Pike was shown as a little over 1,700 feet and once past that point we started to drop down again, towards Springfield. The road signs warned of steep grades, which are a trailer's worst enemy, but actually it was all relatively easy and we hit Springfield with the gas mileage looking sweet again. Simpson fans should note that there is a Springfield in every State in the US; Matt Groening knows his geography.
From Springfield we stayed on the Mass Pike until we were not too far from Boston, then dropped south towards Middleboro. I'd imagined that Massachusetts was all verdant farmland but we spent pretty much the entire trip surrounded by woodland, even as we approached the Atlantic coast. Anyway, our destination was reached about an hour after the Satnav had estimated because we hadn't been travelling at the speed limit.
The Boston/Cape Cod KOA (Kampgrounds of America) is the first commercial campground that we'd booked for some while. They're not the leafy glades that the State Parks offer and tend to have their visitors parked in neat rows, quite close together. What they do have is the "full hookup", electric, water and sewer connections, which means we can use all of Towed Haul's facilities without worrying about filling and emptying different holding tanks. KOAs also tend to have a laundry, kids' facilities and swimming pools, which is why we're here for seven nights, the longest we've camped anywhere. We had paid a little extra to get a slightly bigger site with a patio and attendant furniture. Having backed neatly in against the patio, I set about destroying the table that had been provided by tipping it onto its side in an attempt to refit one of its little plastic feet. A couple of the ceramic tiles that made up the table top fell out and one broke - one-nil to me I believe! Actually, this KOA is quite nice as it's a little wooded and quite spread out. We have reasonable Internet access and a cable TV hookup if we feel like going out and buying a bit of coaxial cable. We have a cable system in the trailer but have never used it, us not being great TV watchers. It's tempting to get a cable given that the service is free but then if we buy a cable, it's not free!
After the morning's very cold start, it was hot and very sunny in Middleboro. The evening was a beauty so we decided to make our way to Plymouth, to get the lie of the land as it were. The big tadpole had set his heart on eating at an IHOP (International House Of Pancakes) and seemed most put out that we wanted to look at the Ocean before eating. The harbour front was busy as there are lots of eating places down there, and we had a bit of bother finding a parking spot. When getting our ticket, we fell into conversation with a Scotsman who'd spotted the small tadpole's Chelsea shirt and made a disparaging comment. So, on our first trip to New England, we found ourselves talking football with a Sweaty. What a strange world.
The evening was lovely, though, and we watched as a couple of Cornish Giggs were launched into the harbour, one a lovely clinker-built model that would have graced fishing village in Cornwall.
We did make it to IHOP in the end, which was a huge sacrifice for Mrs T as she doesn't really like what they serve, so the big tadpole really owes her now. They gave me a free cup of coffee, for no other reason than they'd already made up the bill, which was nice. I say free but the bill was extortionate so maybe it was what I deserved.
Tuesday's activities are set so I hope you'll be able to come back and see what we were up to. Hold tight for another exciting adventure!
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