SCUSSET BEACH STATE RESERVATION (MA)

Scusset Beach campground is adjacent to the Cape Cod Canal, while none of the campsites have a full view of the canal due to heavy foliage, there are several pass-thrus which give easy access to the 7 mile long bike/walk path that follows along on both sides of the canal.

Most sites are long enough for any size rig but bring extra water hose because most sites share one centrally located spigot which could be fifty or more feet away from your site.



THURSDAY

TRAVEL DAY
YEAR #2 - STOP #33

We're baaaack! After taking a week off from blogging and working we have moved on down the road a whole 23 miles. Throughout the week that we were here in Cape Cod, where Tricia was born and raised, we were able to visit with fourteen of her relatives who still live in the area. Add in two more who we visited last week in Rhode Island and a few more who are going to visit with us this weekend and the total could reach as high as twenty-two before we leave Massachusetts.

SPOILER ALERT: There are still four more relatives we are planning a visit with when we arrive in New Hampshire next week.



FRIDAY

ERRANDS DAY
58 MILES DRIVEN TODAY

Today we decided to start off our day of errands with a little sightseeing tour. Located just 16 miles up the coast from our campsite is the Plymouth Rock. It's the location where the Mayflower ship landed with the first group of Pilgrims in 1620 to begin a new colony in America. The first English colony in America was established in 1607 near Jamestown, VA. We visited that location back in August of last year.

Plymouth Rock Site
Beautiful location for an historic site

Plymouth Rock
What's left of the star of the show - Plymouth Rock


With the fun stuff out of the way it's time to get started on our errands list. The town of Plymouth has everything we need for party preparations, a Walmart for paper products and plastic utensils, a local grocery chain called Market Basket for food and drinks, a liquor store for a few essentials, a Taco Bell for lunch and the campground office sells firewood.

We are preparing for a farewell party!



SATURDAY

CAMPFIRE NIGHT
17 MILES DRIVEN TODAY

We're preparing for a final visit from Tricia's relatives who we invited to our campsite for dinner and dessert. For appetizers Tricia made some fresh salsa and guacamole, we also bought hummus and six different kinds of chips. For dinner we're keeping it simple, we cooked 16 Nathan's Hot Dogs on the BBQ (only one went uneaten) and offered chopped onion and dill relish along with the standard mustard and ketchup. Our guests brought some additional chips and delicious three bean and edamame bean salads.

For drinks we offered Simply brand Lemonade, Limeade and Watermelon juices (they were on sale). We had AriZona Half & Half (ice tea/lemonade) and a 2.5 gallon jug of spring water with a push/pull spout for dispensing, which surprisingly seemed to be the kids favorite beverage.

If I got the head count correct there were 6 children and 7 adults present at the party.


After dinner we all moved over to a community fire pit located just a few yards from our campsite and starting preparing to make everyone's favorite camping dessert, S'mores. The standard S'more is melted marshmallow and chocolate, sandwiched between two graham crackers. We of course wanted to make the dessert special so we offered the deluxe version, starting with special square and flat marshmallows (they fit on the square and flat graham crackers better, less messy). We had the standard Hershey's Milk Chocolate bar squares but also offered smaller sized Reese's Peanut Butter Cups if that was more to your liking. Now if you don't like how messy a S'more can get we also offered in addition to the standard Honey Graham Crackers a sometimes hard to find Chocolate Graham Cracker which can eliminate the melted chocolate portion of your dessert.

Everyone was given their own two foot long bamboo skewer to roast their very own marshmallow to just the right golden brown or black as it sometimes turned out, and then the adults were given the option of dunking their marshmallow into a cup filled with KahlĂșa (a coffee-flavored liqueur from Mexico) or a cup filled with Baileys Irish Cream (an Irish whiskey and cream-based liqueur) or both as it somehow turned out. We learned about this adult version of the S'more from a camping friend years ago. Of course you can always skip the whole S'more portion of the procedure and just dunk your melted marshmallow into the liqueurs and enjoy.


It was after 9PM when the last of our guests departed and after a little cleanup Tricia came back to visit me at the campfire to finish up the night. It wasn't long before a younger couple came over to the fire with their own bag full of S'more making supplies and shared our fire. We asked if they would like to "adopt the fire" and thereby the duties of making sure it was properly extinguished at the end of the night. They happily accepted and we happily left and went to bed.



SUNDAY

RELAXATION DAY
0 MILES DRIVEN TODAY

Today we did something we rarely do, took a day off of everything and relax. Well most of the day, we did pack away all of our outdoor decorations and lights to make tomorrow's moving day and little simpler. Then we dug the bicycles out from ROVER's back seat and rode them out on the Cape Cod Canal bike path for about 2.5 miles, down to the Sagamore Bridge before turning around. The entire bike trail is actually 7 miles long but this is a relaxation day after all.

Cape Cod Canal
Our Schwinn Loop folding bicycles

Cape Cod Canal
The fishing pier located behind the Campground Office

Cape Cod Canal
A sailboat passing through the Cape Cod Canal

Cape Cod Canal
There is only two ways into and out of Cape Cod by car, this is the Sagamore Bridge and the other one is the Bourne Bridge just a few miles south of here. There is a third bridge but that is for the railroad trains only!


While riding back through the campsites we spotted a bunch of Airstreams on the far side of the campground, they must have sneaked in when we weren't looking. We just had to go explore and found out there were actually eight of them. They come from all over New England and get together a few times a year to keep in touch with each other. We introduced ourselves as Tricia and Phil, the Tommy Bahama Airstream over in the opposite corner of the campground, and much to our surprise they were all ready aware of us being there.

There were tons of the usual questions, about where we were from and where we were going, did we like the Tommy Bahama decor and were we having any problems with our Airstream. We mentioned our water pump was no longer working and someone in the group easily diagnosed the issue and gave us a solution to try and fix it. Much to our delight it solved our problem and we will no longer have to carry water in one gallon jugs across the campground to use for washing dishes and flushing the toilet when there is no water hookup on our campsite. The solution couldn't have come at a better time because twelve of the next fifteen weeks we will have no water on our campsite as we travel through the northern parts of New England and the Midwest.



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