We had a travel day today. We departed Sturbridge and drove to another TT campground called Gateway to Cape Cod in Rochester, Mass. It is interesting that they have selected this name because to the end of Cape Cod is better than 80 miles from the campground. It should probably be the Gateway to the Gateway to Cape Cod or A Campground That Only Requires 20 Minutes of Driving to Reach the Cape Cod Channel Where Cape Cod Actually Begins. Regardless of the name, the campground is a big Jose with full hookups and amenities other than Sprint phone service and viable wi-fi. It is situated in a big grove of conifers that offer mottled shade for almost the entire day. The access road is ugly but, other than that, it is a nice place to set up for the week.
We arrived early in the day, thanks to the Mass Turnpike which is a toll road crossing the whole state from west to east. The road was wider than Hwy 20 that we entered Sturbridge on but the paving was almost as bad as the rest of the roads in Massachusetts. I would be pissed off if the government collected taxes for the roads and spent it elsewhere because the roads are in quite bad shape.
Our early arrival allowed us the afternoon with no commitments so we decided to wander over into Rhode Island to see what it looked like and to allow ourselves the ability to say we had been in that state. One thing is immediately clear when you enter Rhode Island: they have much better roads. The countryside we drove through was quite nice with mostly hardwood forests along with some farmland and some big estates. Rhode Island much be the rich brother to Massachusetts because it appears they live in better houses, have more acreage and the roads are properly designed and built. Rhode Island is also extraordinarily puny – you could probably cross the entire state west-to-east in less than an hour and cover it north-to-south in just a bit longer. We cleverly avoided going into the capital, Hartford.