After leaving Cape Cod, Massachusetts we made our way to Connecticut, the place where Tim and I grew up, met and fell in love 25 years ago. We have been back a couple times since moving to Arizona but overall we are both glad we made the move to the west. While in Connecticut we were able to visit lots of family and friends which was really great but we couldn’t help but think how moving west all those years ago was the right thing to do.
While in Connecticut we stayed at a campground that is attached to an amusement park, Lake Compounce. It was a convenient location and turned out to be a good campground with electric and water hookups and decent showers. All this time Tim is telling me how they have the oldest wooden roller coaster and I am just saying yeah, yeah, yeah. Then while we are there the park is not actually open, they are basically closed for the season but the gates are open for the workers who are working on various construction projects. We wandered into the empty amusement park and I see this structure covered with greenery with the number 170…. and it says years, 170 YEARS, and I thought wait… what… 170 YEARS?!? Then we see a sign that says this park here in Bristol, Connecticut is the oldest amusement park in America, wow that is pretty amazing! Tim is now saying “see, I told you”.
Camping at Lake Compounce
As a side note we found a nice paved bike/walking trail near the West Hartford Reservoir:
It has been a while since my last post. Excuses are – we were in Connecticut busy visiting family and friends then we had no cell service / internet at Shenandoah National Park and on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Real reason – laziness.
In my last post we were at Acadia National Park in Maine. We enjoyed the “quiet” side of the park on the Schoodic Peninsula more than the main area of the park. Update on Tim’s wrist is the doctor called a few days later and said the wrist is actually broken and he only needs a cast if it hurts a lot, which it does not so he should just keep wearing the brace and get an x-ray in a couple weeks to make sure it is healing correctly. Life on the road is difficult when you only have use of one hand. I try to do as much as I can but there are a lot of things that only he knows how to do.
After Maine we decided to visit Cape Cod, Massachusetts. I have great memories of camping there with my family when I was a child. With the sand dunes and beaches it was a fun place we all liked to go. Tim had only been there for a day trip once a long time ago so we decided to give it a try.
We stayed at a campground very close to Provincetown which is a tourist town all the way on the tip of the arm of Cape Code. We were able to walk into town as well as walk to Race Point Beach. We are finding with the van the ideal situation is to just park it somewhere, like at a campground, then walk places. When we do take the van into town or to a trailhead it can be hard to find a place to park it. In the East here things are very packed in so it can be hard to maneuver a large vehicle. We are also finding a lot of places are not really walker friendly, as was the case at the Cape. Walking to town there are no sidewalks in a lot of places and of course cars are going fast which makes for a dangerous situation. Walking to the beach was a little better because part way there we came across a bike trail which you are allowed to walk on. As we were walking out to the beach we started seeing RVs parked out on the beach. I read that the park service allows a certain number of people to get permits to camp on the beach but you have to be totally self-contained, meaning you have to have your own bathroom inside your vehicle. The campers looked like they were really enjoying themselves camping on the beach and fishing.
Bike Trail to BeachCampers on Race Point BeachCampers Fishing on Race Point Beach
A lot of the beach on Cape Cod is National Seashore and the park service does have some visitor centers and ranger programs available. The highlight of our time on Cape Cod has to be seeing a couple hundred seals “hauling out” on a sandbar. This is when the seals pull themselves out of the water and rest. There was a ranger-led walk on Head of the Meadow Beach to the location where the seals would be. We really enjoy the ranger-led activities because they give you so much background information and history.
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