The Great End of Summer Road Trip – Part 4

How does one live in Massachusetts for more than 30 years, and never visit Cape Cod?

I'd been asking myself that question for years. Barbara had visited Provincetown a long, long while back with a friend of hers before we met each other, and she and I had just barely crossed over the Sagamore Bridge when her grandparents lived maybe 10 minutes over that bridge just after we were married.

But Cape beaches? Quaint Cape tourist traps? Never!

Not that this trip was going to give us a lot of time to do some major Cape Cod exploration, because once again, it was a short stop towards a more lengthy stay in southern Maine, but we were determined to give it our best shot.

With one exception, it was a wasted endeavor.

We had three nights booked at Bay View RV Campground about 3 miles over the Bourne Bridge in Bourne, MA. It's an older campground open since 1959, and the sites and roads in the camp are very narrow and most are not big rig friendly. We're 38' long, and we watched two 45' motor homes who checked in ahead of us struggling to navigate roads that were designated as 2-way, but were barely wide enough for one way traffic if it was any RV. Most site were barely long enough to back in with enough room left to park your tow vehicle.

 

If you look to the rear of the RV on the left, you'll see how I had to thread the needle between the picnic table and the trees on the right. The Jeep's location is deceptive, as it's front end is next to our entry steps!

That being said, the lack of proper sites was more than made up for with the amenities on-site. Not one, not two, but THREE pools, a huge playground that would have had Jace salivating, the usual basketball and pickleball courts, an ice cream / snack bar, and the staff was doing Halloween in August for the kids since the park closes down around Columbus Day.

Due to it's narrow roads and small sites, Bay View did NOT allow for early check-in – not even if you wanted to pay extra. Basically, they needed all checkouts leaving in one direction up until 11:00, and incoming arrivals coming in those same roads in the other direction, with time enough to prepare sites in between. But the staff made it work. They were also right off of state Route 28 with a VERY LIMITED entrance way, so at 2:00 check-in time, there was a three lane wide backup in the campground entrance that on busy arrival days, extended out onto state Route 28 which also ended up blocking another street access if you didn't know what was going on. (I didn't, so guilty as charged)

I ended up speaking to one of the seasonal residents on a trip to the nearest pool, and the park was apparently slated to close permanently after last season, but an new investor came in and saved it from extinction. Really nice couple who gave us the scoop on the best pizza place nearby (and it was very good!), and gave us some pointers on our next destination in Wells, ME.

We were also on the Cape to visit a former high school classmate of Barbara's we had last seen at her 50^th reunion a couple of years ago, who lived a short distance from the campground. Ended up getting our first taste of New England seafood at a nearby restaurant with them. The company was great; the seafood was – meh. If you've grown up in Massachusetts near the North Shore of Essex and Ipswich, your seafood standards are pretty high – what can I say?

 

While the seafood could have been better, the company was fantastic. Mary Jo and Barbara attended high school together, and Bob and I hit it off right away.

Attempts at sightseeing on the Cape were, frankly, a disaster. Tried to do the Provincetown thing, but apparently there was some festival going on that week and traffic into an out of the town was murderous. And once we did get near the shopping/tourist district, the roads were so narrow and packed with cars that I actually started to have a panic attack! To be honest, I don't know how people live there on a daily basis. If you're willing to live like a sardine 24/7, go for it; but that's not for me. We turned around and fled the scene without stopping.

Did get our second helping of New England seafood at Moby Dick's in, I believe, Wellfleet, and it was – meh. Scallops, OK. Clams were tiny and tasteless.

Our second sightseeing attempt was Woods Hole. While not quite as tightly-packed as Provincetown, attempts to find parking were futile. One lot which had any spots available charged $70 PER DAY! And that was their ONLY rate. Nothing hourly! So we turned around and headed back to the campground.

We determined that the best way to sight-see on Cape Cod if you're just visiting is to find a tour company and let them shuttle you to and from your destination in a bus.

One little RV-specific note which was a bit strange – and sometimes challenging – is the way they handle traffic on state Route 28 up and down the Cape. It's a 2-and-2 parkway with a median in the middle, and their way of allowing you to reverse direction is to give you breaks in the median with a left turn feeding into a U-turn. Once you navigate that, there's a significantly long acceleration lane on the left side of the parkway to get you up to highway speeds.

Unless you're a motor home.

One: if you're driving a motor home the U-turn might be a bit narrow, meaning your nose MIGHT work it's way out into oncoming 55 MPH traffic if you're not being cautious.

Two: that acceleration lane I mentioned? Long enough for cars to get up to highway speeds; not so much for a 28,600 lb motor home towing a 3,600 lb Jeep trying to reach 55 MPH before some jerk who is nowhere close to following the speed limit (standard operating procedure for most Massachusetts drivers), runs right up your rear end and takes umbrage at slowing him or her down.

All that being said, our long wait to discover Cape Cod was – pretty awful. Definitely not a repeat destination for us.

Our next stop on the Great American Summer Trip was the friends and family portion; always a challenge due to timings and scheduling of people who still aren't retired like we are and have lives of their own, plus too many of them to see even with two weeks of opportunity.

All in the next Parental Parolees!