Several months ago, we decided we wanted to go to Cape Cod for a vacation. Early on in our relationship, before we had our lovely lake cottage, we camped at the Cape each summer. Over the years, we’ve visited the Cape every few years. Within the last 10 years or so, we vacationed twice with our friends Reva and JoAnn and had great times. So, we decided to organize a Cape vacation with Reva and Jo. Christine did a ton of work to identify a nice rental place. We’ve arrived at the age where sleeping on the ground in a tent is not very appealing, nor is hiking to the bathroom in the middle of the night through a dark campground. A house with beds, running water, a shower and toilet, and creature comforts is what we wanted. Christine found a nice cottage in the scrub pines in Wellfleet and so she booked the place for the week of September 9-16. A couple of days before we were scheduled to leave for the Cape, our friend Eve’s mother died and so instead of going to the Cape, the four of us got in the car and drove to Munster, IN to be with Eve. Eve and Pat, Reva and Jo, and Christine and I, aka the 6-pack, are best friends and so there was no discussion about not going to Indiana. Of course, we went.
That trip then put the kibosh on our Cape rental with a no refund clause in the rental agreement. We then tried to work with the rental agent to substitute our missed week with one in October. The second week of October is Women’s Week in Provincetown, which we thought would be fun. Unfortunately, the owner spends October at their place in Wellfleet, but that wasn’t a given due to some issues they were having that might prevent them from traveling to the Cape from California. The rental agent gave us the choice of coming before the end of September or take our chances that the owner might not come in October and go then, and if that didn’t work, lose our money. Late last week we finally decided to just go to the Cape and we all rearranged our schedules quickly to accommodate a week off, September 23-30.
We packed JoAnn’s van, which is fondly named Vanna Blue, and set off to the Cape the afternoon of September 22. We chose to drive about halfway and spend the night at a Hampton Inn in West Springfield, MA. None of us is very fond of sitting in a car for hours at a time, so breaking up the drive in two parts seemed like a good idea. We got to West Springfield by dinner time. We had dinner at a nearby Olive Garden and then settled in for the night at the Hampton.
Saturday we had a leisurely breakfast and then packed up and started off. Before leaving the parking lot, Reva noticed that several lights on the dashboard were lit up – brakes, ABS, airbags, and tire pressure. That wasn’t good. Fortunately, right down the road from the Hampton was a Toyota dealer. It was a huge dealership that had a drive thru service department, which I had never heard of. There were 2 giant bay doors and cars just line up and they take you in order, no appointment necessary. Sitting in a dealership for a couple of hours wasn’t exactly in our plans, but better safe than sorry. One of the things Reva does to pass the time is translate a book printed in Braille. She’s been taking coursework to be certified in working with the visually impaired so she’s learned to read Braille, not with her fingers but with her eyes. She is undertaking translating 5 volumes of Divergent! She sat in the dealership writing the printed letter above each Braille letter.
The service guy had difficulty diagnosing some of the problems, but he did replace a cable to get the airbag deployment relay working, a good thing. The funny part was that the dashboard lights were on, then off, then on, then off. The guy kept driving the van around the lot to see if they’d come on, or stay off. But, after a couple of hours, we were on our way.
We made it across the Sagamore Bridge and to the Cape with no other problems. We made a stop at Whole Foods in Hyannis and then on to Wellfleet. We picked up the keys from the rental agent and headed to our lovely little cottage in the woods. We were happy to arrive and very pleased with the place. We unpacked and settled in and enjoyed an evening in. More about the place tomorrow.