Cape Cod, Mass.

 10/5-10/9/15 In Thousand Trails, Cape Cod, MA

Monday - We got the vehicles and the tow bar driveable, so back on the road.  We will get the body work done when we get home.  We are in Thousand Trails at ‘Gateway to Cape Cod’.  It is very woodsy and very much the same as other Thousand Trails campgrounds.  We really like them.  Our neighbors are mostly local people who stay here regularly.  Tom and I sat outside around the campfire with people from New Bedford (about 25 miles away) and got to know them. 

Tuesday, 10/6 – Tom and I got in the Jeep to leave and it wouldn’t start AGAIN.  This is the 3^rd time, so we put the charger on it, started it and went to a garage.  They tested and found that the battery was history (what else is going to happen this trip?).  We bought a new battery and left for Plymouth, Mass.  First stop – Plymouth Rock.  Actually it is just a symbol of the landing of the pilgrims in Plymouth in 1620, but the townspeople carved the year in a rock, put up a monument in the 1800’s around it and now it is a big draw for tourists – just like us.  The current monument was built in 1920 to commemorate the 300^th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower.  Here is a picture of Plymouth Rock and the monument.

Plymouth Rock

Add Monument around Plymouth Rock

After Plymouth Rock, we went to tour the Mayflower II, which is moored in the same memorial park.

Mayflower II

 I was surprised at how small the ship is (the deck is only 90’ across) and two decks for people (the bottom deck was for cargo and supplies).  Even so, the Mayflower carried 102 passengers and about 40 crew.  The voyage was 66 days from England.  It must have been horrible.  Most of the passengers got sick.  One died, and one was born on the ship, so it landed with the same number of passengers – 102.  I thought it was interesting that 3 women made the voyage ‘with child’.  The first birth was on the Mayflower and was stillborn.  The second was also on the Mayflower and was a boy born to the White family.  His name was Perigrine White (like the falcon).  The third was born on American soil, but I don’t have any information about it.  

Wednesday – 10/7 – Tom and I are off again, this time to Plimoth Plantation (no, I didn’t misspell Plimoth).  Actually I asked, and found out that Plimoth is the most common spelling from England, but when the city was founded, they spelled it Plymouth.  When the non-profit group that runs Plimoth Plantation picked a name, they decided to spell it with an “i” to differentiate it from the city. 

To Allen and Joy Hildebrandt – this is for you.  Allen and Joy are friends of mine who told me to be sure and go and see the Plimoth Plantation if we were in the area.  It is a re-creation of the life of the pilgrims in 1620.  The staff actually live there, wear the garb of the day, use the tools of the day, and live in the houses they constructed there – just like the pilgrims of 1620.  Even their language and terminology is of the time, and it only got me tripped up once.   When we went into the first house, I asked the attendant where the bathroom was, and she looked at me with questioning eyes.  She said, “bath?”  I said, “toilet”.  “Oh,” she said, “I will ask you politely, do you have to relieve yourself?”  I said, “no, but if I did, where would I go?”  She said, “we have a chamber pot.”  Oops!  The word bathroom did not exist in 1620.  Here are some pictures of Plimoth Plantation.

The English Village

The blacksmith making nails

Tom and I really enjoyed our visit there.  They really made you feel that you were living in that time. 

Thursday, 10/8 – Tom and I headed to Newport, Rhode Island (about 40 miles from the campground).  We had been here before around 2000, but only had time to see one of the historic mansions, The Breakers.  Today, we had time to see 4 more mansions; Rosecliff, Marble House, Chateau-sur-Mer, and The Elms.  The mansions are all on one street or area of Newport.  There are 10 of them open to the public and offer tours of the houses.  Most of them were built between 1890 and 1905– the Gilded Age, when money was no obstacle for the very rich of the Era.  Two of the houses were built for the Vanderbilt family, Breakers and Marble House.  I could not take pictures, but if you want to see any of them, you can see them at https://www.google.com/search?q=newport+mansions&espv=2&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CEgQsARqFQoTCPba3JS2tsgCFUeqgAodAjoNUw&biw=1527&bih=781

After all of this touring, we were hungry, so we went down to the wharf in Plymouth, and guess what we had for lunch?????  Of course, it was lobstah (as they pronounce it in New England).  We had fried lobstah- yum.

Fried Lobstah

On the way back to the RV, we passed more harvesting of the cranberries.  Cranberries in Massachusetts is big business.  The Ocean Spray plant is near Carver, Ma (they may have more in other towns).  Everywhere we went, there was cranberry stuff.  Even the campground we were at was surrounded by cranberry bogs.  

cranberry harvesting