Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Cape Cod 2007 - Day 1

My foot hurts. The rental house is heated via a single, large metal grate in the living room floor, installed right outside the master bedroom door. I made the mistake of walking over it in bare feet as hot air was blowing through and was rewarded with a lovely set of burn marks on the bottom of my left foot. Another random, stupid accident to add to my list.

As last year, we packed up the car and left late Tuesday afternoon. It was a longer drive then last year, as we stopped for an hour to eat (at Sheetz), it was very foggy in places and J decided to take I-79 to I-80 instead of the toll roads suggested by Google maps, causing an unplanned, hour long detour. It is very important to read driving directions in context.

The strangest sight? Crossing the Tappan Zee bridge and seeing New York without lights, as the city was shrouded in a dense, black fog.

The strangest moment? Stopping for gas at a Shell super station. The kitchen was unfinished, counters were only partially installed, there was no hot water for tea (or for washing my hands) and the beverage dispensers were a series of pipes sticking out of the wall. According to the attendants on duty, the owners elected to open the station early, without bothering to verify that the credit card readers were hooked up to the diesel pumps or that all the inventory was properly scanned. J's Pop Tarts had to be cashed out manually and added to a handwritten list of items-that-need-put-into-computer.

Once again we elected to miss the sunrise in favor of catching a few hours of sleep before getting cleaned up and finding a grocery store. We ended up at Trader Joe's and had to resist the temptation to buy out the entire store. This was accomplished by repeating the mantra “Pittsburgh has a Trader Joe's now” over and over again. As I paid for our groceries I took a moment to idly wonder how I always manage to spend 67 dollars and change every time I visit a store, no matter what state I happen to be in.

It is quiet here, blissfully silent. The dark falls quickly. Aside from the badly located vent, the house is a cozy little place and heats very well. The Cape is almost, but not quite, deserted. We are staying in South Yarmouth off of Route 28, a road built up with more than its fair share of old and abandoned tourist hotels and closed-for-the-season summer eating shacks.

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