Headed to Cape Cod

Before we went to bed Saturday night we said good bye to Gib and Amber as they were headed back to Oregon at 5am the next morning. It had been a whirl wind trip, but a very memorable one. We got up Sunday morning and packed the rental car and headed to Cape Cod. (We flew into Providence, RI and rented a car there, drove it to NYC) Turns out it was and unforeseen blessing. I had chosen this itinerary, since I wanted to go visit my family on Cape Cod, and it’s easy to fly out of Providence. Gib and Amber paid as much to rent a car out of JFK for two days, as we did getting one for 7 days out of Rhode Island. Guess the pricing is all about markets and demand.

It was a pretty easy drive actually. We headed north and then west on 95 through southern Connecticut and into RI, and then over to Cape Cod. NY had several toll roads and bridges. One bridge toll was $5.00.
Connecticut has very nice rest areas. They call them service areas, they have large rest rooms, gas stations and a fast food court. It was really nice to not have to get off the freeway and hunt for gas or a snack. Again I was intrigued by the midget toilets… I even took a picture… Maybe Conn has a high population of short folks… The seat measures 16 inches off the floor. Guess I’m just easily amused... At some point later in the day, while we were still in Conn I stopped for gas. Ansel was ready for a restroom break, so I pulled around to TravelMart store for him to go inside. I always make a point to open the glass doors for him, because some of the doors are very heavy and they knock him off balance. As Ansel got out and started shuffling up toward the glass door, and I jumped out and when I ran around the front of the car… tripped over the cement parking block and splat - - fell in a pile on the asphalt… ouch was my pride ever hurt… it was blazing hot… I was horribly embarrassed, then an off duty fire fighter (I make this assumption based on the t-shirt he was wearing) came running over and of course wanted to call out the cavalry... It wasn't any big deal... I knew I was fine... just tweaked pride and wrenched my ankle a little and got a little road rash on my arm. After we got all collected up again, we headed out for the rest of the drive to the Cape. It wasn’t a bad drive at all… total on-the-road-time I think it was 3 ¾ hours.

the Belmont after glow

After we left Belmont Park… we headed back to our hotel neighborhood… just getting out of the parking lot proved to be a challenge. That really was the only time that we encountered the “masses”. I bet it took us 30 minutes to go ½ a mile. But after we got past the bunch getting on the freeway it was a piece of cake to surface streets in normal traffic load back to the hotel. Then we headed for a relaxing dinner and libations at a restaurant near the hotel.


Speaking of the hotel that we stayed at… our friend Lynn Sirrine was the one that told me about it. When I first started trying to put our itinerary together for the trip most of the hotel rooms that I came up on internet searches (Hotwire, Orbitz, Travelocity, etc…) were either sold out, or were ridiculously priced out of our budget. So I sent out an SOS email to my email circle of friends and family asking if anyone had any connections or ideas for lodging? And Lynn promptly wrote back that I should try The Five Towns Inn, that it was close to JFK, and that she stayed there frequently when she traveled to NY on business. She also said they put up several flight crews, and that was an indicator of how nice the place was. So I tried them and sure enough, they had vacancies and were very reasonable. Gib and Amber were also able to change their hotel reservations to the same place which made things nice.
If you are ever in the JFK area, stay at the FIVE TOWNS INN.The staff at the hotel treated us like family… the lobby and rooms were nice, and it was conveniently located near everything. I think it was only 10 miles to Belmont Park from the hotel. I wish we had taken another day to poke around there. It would have been nice for Ansel to see the Statue of Liberty and a few other attractions. But the bottom line was that we were able to fulfill his wish, and he was able to attend the Belmont Stakes. We’re still a little blue that we didn’t get to see a Triple Crown victory, or to see Big Brown give a valiant effort to get the Triple Crown… it’s hard to believe that it was all over so quickly. In the blink of an eye, they were in the home stretch. The whole experience was a fairytale, and I’m so thankful to those who had a hand in making it possible. !!!! There were so many wonderful things that worked out, answers to prayers, that made this trip possible. In the morning, we'll start our the next chapter of our adventure driving up to Cape Cod. Stay tuned :-)