Last night it started to rain around 8:00 PM and it was only a drizzle. The rainfall seemed to be increasing by about midnight and by this morning there was a colossal torrent of rain falling which turned the Gateway to the Gateway to Cape Cod campground into a nifty pattern of pools with some tiny spots where soil was visible above the widespread lakes. Strange items, some of which used to be live creatures, were bobbing around in the newly-established lagoons of murky water.
Unfortunately for us, today was a designated travel day. I was not eager to depart the GTTGTCC campground in the crummy conditions but we had a reservation at our next destination and would have to pay the fee whether we made it there or not. We got all our stuff stowed and hooked Charlotte to the Invader in a moderate rainstorm. We left the campsite by about 10:45 and noted the weather seemed to be deteriorating by the minute. By the time we made it to I-495 (about 4 miles) the rain was steady.
It is possible that I may have commented on the quality of Massachusetts roads earlier but I was unable to truly recognize the horror associated with driving on their roads until I had the opportunity to travel along them in lousy weather. In addition to being paved by workmen unable to understand fundamental concepts like square and/or level, the engineers have designed the pavements such that they do not drain. The asphalt mixes they have used are extremely slippery and any attempts to go near the throttle result in whining noises from the rear tires as they lose traction. Coupled with the terrifying Massachusetts drivers that like to take slow lane exits directly from the fast lane, traveling over these alleged highways is an exercise in abject terror. Even the newly repaired sections of I-95, one of my least favorite roads and the main north-south freeway on the U.S. east coast, were lumpy and seemed to have been paved by dropping asphalt paving mix from high-altitude bombers. The sections over the bridges, and there are a lot of them, have yawning craters in the surface which have a tendency to try to throw your vehicle over the guardrail into the river or pond or railroad tracks below. There were several times when I thought some poo may have come out.
However, we were finally able to leave the memorable Massachusetts highway system behind because we crossed the line into New Hampshire. We drove a very circuitous route around the only section of I-95 in N.H. (because despite being a Federal Interstate highway, the state has turned it into a toll road) before arriving in the rain at our new campground in Newfields, NH, called Great Bay Campground. The campground has full hookups and pretty good wi-fi but is a bit challenging to find. When we called for directions, the host told us to drive to a certain Shell gas station and to take the road that runs alongside the right side of the station. We followed his directions and soon arrived behind a gas station with a medium-sized parking area and two blue dumpsters. Peg exited the car and looked down a skinny dirt road that started sort of behind the dumpsters and quickly saw two signs that both read “Do Not Enter.” We called the campground host again for the second time in about 4 minutes and he told us the signs telling us not to enter were not really do not enter signs but actually a greeting to lost travelers. We entered where we should not have entered and, after driving on some squirrelly dirt road we emerged into an RV park where we checked in, set up and promptly had a few drinks to get us settled down from our exhilarating experiences.
Am I ever glad to be out of Massachusetts. We will explore tomorrow once the hangover goes away. We see that I-95 is a toll road in NH but, since NH only has 11 miles of coastline and 95 runs right next to the coast, we figure they can’t stick us for too much money unless they are very creative or bandits.