Road Trip...Day 16 - Day 18

Day 16... Sept 30

At 4:00am the first rain drops were heard tapping on the roof of the van. From there on the weather went downhill, fast. The good thing was knowing that we selected a camping site within 30 minutes of Truro, the village where Kerry's sister is staying. As we left for the final stage of the drive. We hit the 4000 mile point of our adventure. We still had a long way to go. The roads were a mess so we took our time driving. We drove cautiously stopping for breakfast at a place called the Lunch Box. It was a wonderful meal and a nice break from the stormy roads. 

We finally made it to Christina's but since we had a couple of hours to kill before she got home we decided to drive out to Provincetown (P Town as the locals call it). The weather wasn't letting up and visibility was getting worse. We drove around for a little bit before deciding that we need to get back to Truro before the roads become impossible to navigate. We slowly made our way back to Christina's and once we got there we decided that we would kill the last hour by jumping in to the back of the van for a little nap. It was good.

A funny story about waiting for Christina and Michael to get home. We put the address into the GPS ... #1 Cooper Street. We found it right away and made our way down the tight windy driveway. That was where we waited, and napped. Christina was supposed to be home by 2:00 pm and by 2:15pm we were trying to call her to see where she was...no cell phone signal. Then Kerry asked, "Could we have the wrong house?" We doubled checked. Yup this was #1 Cooper street. Kerry double checked her last text from her sister and right there, on the phone it said #1 Cooper Circle and it also said the garage door would be left open for us. Looking at the house we were parked at, neither of the garage doors were opened. Kerry plugged the new address, with the word Circle added, into the GPS. It told us we were less than a half mile away. We followed the GPS instructions and within minutes we pulled up to #1 Cooper Circle...and the garage door was left open, waiting. Can you believe it? We were squatting, napping, at the wrong house all this time.

After unloading the van and getting the laundry out of the way the weather started to break. The winds were still strong but at least the rain stopped...for now. We decided to take advantage of the break in the weather and take a hike along the nearby beach. It was a beautiful walk. When we got back to the house we sat down to a great meal, followed by conversation, TV and for me ice cream for dessert. 

The news just came in. Hurricane Jauquin was looking like it may grow into a category 3 storm and it might be heading our way. As we pondered the possibility of having a hurricane party within the next couple of days, the skies opened up once again and winds continued to blow. This was going to be a very interesting next few days.

Day 17...Oct 1

When we woke up the first order of business was to get the coffee going...high octane for everyone else and decaf for me, just the way I like it. While having some porridge (oatmeal) for breakfast we talked about what we were going to do today. Since it was not raining yet, we all agreed that whatever we do we needed to do it soon, before the rain returned...and it was going to return.

A walk was agreed and within 30 minutes we were hitting the trails. Along the way we came across an old cemetery with some stones dating back to the late 1700's. After reading birth and death dates for a while we continued our supposedly short walk...we got lost! By time we got home we had logged in over 4 miles. It was now time for lunch and we were all hungry. We ate tuna on toasted Amish bread with tomatoes and lettuce. Yum

Michael and I sat around while the girls went shopping for supplies. While waiting for their return we monitored the hurricane to determine when it was going to hit us. We also heard about the shooting back home in Oregon...Sad Sad Sad

For dinner we had some shrimp and rice...double yum. It was a relaxing night of sitting around watching brain dead TV, sharing conversation and enjoying each other's company.

Kerry's brother John and his wife June landed in Boston and we're going to spend the night there before heading over to the Cape tomorrow. A nice and easy day it was....

Day 18...Oct 2

I woke up early today (4:00am) and after checking e-mail, Facebook and YouTube I decided to head back to bed to see if I could catch another hour or so of sleep before the sun came up. It worked...by 7:00am I was drinking my morning coffee. 

Michael wrote a song a few years ago called  Meaning of Life. It was recorded by Michael's friend Johnny Smith. I spent the day helping him put the tune to a slideshow as a tribute to the Umpqua Community College tragedy.  Once it was complete a copy was sent out to everyone we knew to see if we could get it into as many hands as possible.

Around 1:00pm Kerry's brother John and his wife June arrived and after a half hour of greetings we headed to P-Town (Provincetown) for lunch and shopping. Oh, did I mention that it had been raining all day? Once we finished eating lunch I ended up buying a sweater to help keep me warm...the rain was blowing in a horizontal direction and the temp was dropping. Eventually we made our way back home, visited, played games and surfed the Internet. 

For dinner Christina cooked some amazing Cod with assorted side dishes. OMG. Today was a fun, productive Wet and Cold day. The forecast for tomorrow is more rain,  but with slightly warmer temps...we hope maybe there will be some rainless periods in between.