The Toads Go East - Day 5

Plymouth, Mass. on a fine summer's evening

Wednesday.

Down time today, late rising (for others) and general hanging about the campground whilst recharging our batteries; not just the one for the camera, either.

I started the day early, though, and hit the KOA shower block at six in the morning. I think it's the only block on the site and unfortunately one of the three shower stalls is out of action due to a broken door. This is quite surprising because the management here really seems to be on top of the site's maintenance and the all of the communal facilities are squeaky-clean, at least until the campers get their hands on things. Anyway, the shower was available and working and gets a four out of five stars from me, the fifth star being dropped for a fairly manky curtain and an iffy shower head; minor irritations both but I'm in the pursuit of excellence, as you know. The floors in the toilet stalls were, at that time of the day and prior to cleaning, littered with toilet paper and the results of very poor aiming by the male folk here. It's not the fault of the KOA but the people using them and, having witnessed throngs of very young kids in and out without supervision the day before, I can see where the issues are. However, the staff here are excellent and the place is like a new pin after the daily cleaning. 

Whilst on the subject of the facilities, we did some clothes washing today and could not fault the laundry area at all. All the machines and dryers seemed new to me, were spotlessly clean and worked on quite short cycles. That they were $2 a pop wasn't a great concern, but the fact that in the US the biggest coin is the Quarter (25 cents), that meant loading eight at a time. It's probably Barack Obama's fault that there's no fifty cent, one dollar or even two dollar coins here, folks appear to be blaming him for everything else. Anyway, domestic stuff has to be done and we pretty much cleared the pile we'd collected.

We had a mooch around the campground when going to the office to collect that barrow load of Quarters we needed for the machines and were pleasantly surprised with what we found. Sure, the trailers are packed quite closely together but there's plenty of grass and trees about to make it look less like a parking lot. The pool looked inviting and there were other diversions for the kids like a "bouncing pillow" and crazy golf, which works because there are an awful lot of ankle biters here. 

Most of the people on site are relatively local; Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and New York licence plates are the most common. There are also quite a few from Quebec, but it's only a day's run from Montreal to here so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Our neighbours are from The Netherlands, and although I accused them of being German, they forgave me and we had a little chat about Europe and football. They're in a rented motorhome and are struggling with the fact that it's a bit long in the tooth. Yesterday the earth pin had snapped off their electrical hookup cable so they're having to run on batteries; it's not a major deal but inconvenient and they're going to have to devote a day of their trip to getting it fixed. Being Dutch, the entire family speaks excellent English, a fact that make me, as a language-shy Brit, hang my head in shame.

We ventured out into the local town of Middleboro, partly to look at the train station with a view to using the rail link to Boston and partly to find a grocery store. The station is at the end of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority's commuter line into Boston's South Station. It's completely unmanned, has not a single ticket machine and uses a bizarre and antiquated method to pay for parking. I say that but to the locals I'm sure it's perfect as they've probably been using it for years, it just seemed a bit alien to me. Essentially, to pay the four dollar fee, you have to shove coins or notes into a small slot with your bay number on it, on a large panel of slots, one slot for every parking space. If you used Quarters that'd be sixteen coins, but most people it would seem fold four dollar bills up really small and shove them in with the aid of a little slot shaped poker which was conveniently hanging nearby on a length of chain. I apologise if I'm sounding a bit critical but it seems an odd way to collect parking money. That said, they have just introduced a pay by cell phone service which I guess would have to be better. It's not much good if you don't use a smart phone but I suppose it's progress over the slots.

We found an excellent grocery store, Hannaford's, when I went into the wrong lane at a junction and had to make an unscheduled right turn. It looked a bit tired from the outside but inside it was a well stocked treasure trove of exciting stuff, quite a lot of it of European origin and therefore familiar to us. Mrs Toad asked the Deli manager if they had any Haloomi cheese and when the fellow said no, she told him he ought to get some, which was nice. Apparently he'd heard mention of Haloomi on the Cooking Channel but hadn't ever seen any - what a lightweight. Anyway, we bought a few bits and bobs, including some nice looking pre-made stuff (we're camping!) and headed off to pay. The lady behind the till had that wonderful New England accent that we've been hearing since we arrived, the one that Cliff on Cheers uses and that turns the "er" on the end of a word to "ah". Try it; "clevah", "undah", "ovah". I thought it was just an invention of the TV script writers but no, it's widely used and sounds brilliant. By the way, I feel it's advisable to mention that Mars Bars are known as Milky Ways here; armed with that information you'll feel happier when you're gagging for a Mars and can't find one.

The tadpoles used their down time not to mingle with the other urchins on site but to sit inside and play on their electronic gizmos, despite the warm sunshine and cloudless skies. You can't force them out, I suppose, but when I was a kid I'd have been off out exploring and getting into fights with the local ruffians. 

Supper was a cooked on a disposable barbecue, something quite common in the UK but rare over here. The ones I was used to fired up to temperatures to rival the sun and burned stuff if you weren't hyper-vigilant, but this Canadian model wasn't especially hot and it took an age to do a few burgers and roast some veggies. Mind you, it was still hot at midnight so it must have been one of the slow acting varieties. You live and learn.

My evening was spent pasting the tadpoles at Monopoly (again) and smiling when they say that I'm unbeatable. The boy tried so hard but as I pointed out, it's a game of chance and it just depends on how the dice fall. He didn't seem convinced and is plotting my downfall I think.

Tomorrow we will be out and about, I think, and may make it to Province Town out on Cape Cod. I'm not sure I can be bothered with too much driving but it'd be a real shame not to venture a little whilst here. I don't think the tadpoles will be that excited to be parted from the Internet access but this is a family holiday and they'll do as they're told!

Tune in again tomorrow, toad fans.