Day 115 Saco Maine Boston Masachusetts
Trip Start
May 07, 2008
1
123
205
Trip End
Nov 22, 2008
Middleboro,
Massachusetts,
United States
Sunday, August 31, 2008
We left the park and headed down route 1 with the idea to take a few diversions to have a look at some of the smaller towns on the way down.
We set York Beach as the first destination, simply to allow us to have a look at the water and possibly a beach.
The time to travel between towns was not great and we arrived at York beach to be in time to obtain a parking space that required 2 parking meters to be feed.
The beach had sand on it, gee what a surprise! Lifeguards as well. No surf boards allowed, (mind you the "waves" were only about 3-6'' high.
We had a cuppa and watched the people gathering and setting up on the beach, being a long weekend it was becoming busy. A police officer patrolling the car park to ensure people paid the fees. In fact booking the expired meters.
We left there and tracked back to our route south, around a couple of bends we came across the road running right beside the beach and more sand, with houses with front doors opening onto the road. This beach had surfers (obviously permitted) and a little better surf waves rolling in.
We quietly drove through this section of York and enjoyed seeing a real beach, but definitely interesting how the properties are either close to the road or the ones on the beach apparently, also own the beach.
We continued the journey heading south towards Boston, and the old style houses all again neatly kept with the picture book type porches or gardens. A real delightful drive, and the seed limits reflect the roads with a lot of the time only 25 mile per hour or 35 mph.
We decided to look for an information centre to attempt to obtain a road map of Massachusetts, not a lot showing up along the way, I guess travellers are supposed to know their way around.
We turned off to head towards another beach to find a lunch spot, this took us to a place called Plum Island, this was a small sandy island linked by a bridge and the parking along "near" the beach was around $15, houses right along the beach cut off access to the beach with a few narrow access paths. Certainly inaccessible for The Castle.
Oh well, we turn back and head back to stop by the bridge linking the island, had lunch and headed back over the bridge, found an information centre and pulled up. This information centre was linked with Wildlife refuge parks for the USA. No real road maps but at least they had facilities.
Plot in the KOA near Boston, and follow Mandy, no big deal away we go. This didn't really create any problems and the roads were fine, we managed to find ourselves on a tollway, but it was only $1.50 and at least they had a booth manned this time, to enable us to pay our way.
The traffic became heavier and faster as we approached the Famous old City, who cares we have handled LA, traffic as well as "the Top of the World highway" . Well the fun was not over yet, we found ourselves on a freeway that had at least two levels (maybe three, not sure we just know we were in a level of steel freeway with another running over our heads. (gee no big deal, clearance is 13'9" we are only 12'5"). The sensation of only that amount of clearance travelling in 4 lane highway under the above freeway at 45-50 mph, is a test of nerves in the Castle!
THEN just as you assure yourself there will be no earthquake and the steel uprights will not turn to spaghetti tubes and wobble and collapse, it takes us underground into a tunnel, just as Mandy tells us; "In one half mile take the exit right" We are not sure if you understand but our "friend" Mandy requires to talk to satellites above the earth, and gee whiz! Underground she loses the ability to talk to her friends! Well the signs to change lanes are tucked up in between high girders, and you can only just spot them from about 50 yards ahead, (remember the clearance is 13'9"), GREAT we spot the exit as we zoom past surrounded by ten million cars travelling a lot faster than us (we were travelling at the speed limit, but it appears it must be only a "recommended speed"
Oh well, hope the tunnel comes up at some time and Mandy can "recalculate" to get us back on route.
At last we see light at the end of the tunnel and rise out of the depths of the lower reaches of Boston, and yep Mandy recalculates and to our wonderful surprise, we are on the road to take us where we were directing ourselves towards.
We managed to find the RV park after travelling through the south side of Boston back into the country area, The KOA is called Boston/Cape Cod KOA, it is situated in between the two, so we figured we could cover both areas from here.
We managed to call in and "get a spot" we had reserved by phone last night, this is a very large RV campground, but remember, it is the Labour day weekend. It is very busy and very full. We picked a site a little off to the side and a good walk to the bathrooms (no choice) but it was not crammed up like others.
This campground is full and a lot of Little people, (rug rats) extremely busy and we have booked for two nights to ensure we have a place over this crazy weekend.
Yes the internet works but the log was missed because we were busy loading some photos. We will catch up.
