Sylvia's Journal

Within less than 24 hours after my arrival at Logan airport we were stuck amidst 1000s of other holiday makers on their way to Cape Cod. Vacation rentals go from Saturday to Saturday which makes for much congestion on the two and one lane roads in and out of Cape Cod. We had taken the station wagon which is old. Its airco doesn’t work and it has a stick shift I can’t really work because of my ankle. Stick shifts and being stuck in traffic, on a hot day can be pretty awful. Luckily I was in the company of my best friend and we had two weeks of talking to catch up with.

At the Audubon campsite in Wellfleet we checked in 45 minutes before closing time. We picked one of the few remaining sites not paying attention to signs of water runoff and pitched our borrowed tent on a flat surface without too many pine cones and sticks.

Dinner consisted of scallops and leftovers from the Manchester fridge. Axel had to do the dishes as I claimed jetlag and retired. And then the rains started, slow pitter patter in the early morning and then buckets and buckets for a few hours. Our poor camp making skills showed instantly with water running under the tent and the tarp hung up the wrong way which made for periodic dumpings of huge amounts of water which then found its way to the lowest point of our site.

I had also slept very poorly on our thin camping mattress and decided that this may well be the last time camping. Luckily I am reading a great book and I found a small section of the picnic table that was dry enough for sinking into the book and ignoring my surroundings. Things had gone from damp to wet to soaked in a matter of hours.

Alison had invited us over for brunch in her North Truro apartment which made for a nice (and dry) diversion, good food that was cooked for us, dishes cleaned up, and of course great company. By the time we left Truro summer had returned and our wet things in the car had steamed up all windows.

We sorted out where Axel had to be for his printmaking class on Monday, bought his supplies, and the ingredients for a meal that didn’t require a stove since Axel’s ancient camping stove had stopped working when we had wanted our second cup of coffee in the morning.

Once again he did the dishes (last time, he threatened) while I retired early again, still claiming jetlag (avoiding the dishes a nice benefit). This time we had added Steve and Tessa’s camping mattresses underneath ours which made all the difference. When I woke up this morning I was well rested and the sun was out. I think I like camping again.