Finally on the Road to the Maritimes

To say our start on this trip was inauspicious, is perhaps one of the greatest understatements I have ever made. We were parked in Georgetown on Reservoir Road, all packed and about three minutes to take-off. I had just made a final check of the house, locked it up and was walking across the street to Gigantor expecting to find Rick in the driver’s seat, ready to leave.

Instead, I see him tearing out onto Reservoir in his car…I yell at him…he yells back that we have just been hit by a bus who broke our side
rearview mirror … he is in hot pursuit. I’m scared to death he’s going to encounter some wacko with a gun who won’t take so kindly to the encounter. Fortunately for us, it’s a GUTS bus….Georgetown University Transportation System…no one gets hurt. Rick gets his info and hears him call someone to respond to our situation. He returns to Tor and an anxious me.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been so grateful that I’m President of the Citizens Association of Georgetown and have forged good relationships with many university staff. As I was calling the GU Department of Public Safety, two University police officers came over to help. Then I reached Peter Luger in DPS and brought him up to speed. He immediately sent over a representative of the traffic department, another police officer and the driver of the culprit bus. Thank you, Peter.

The net/net is since former Boy Scout Rick is always prepared, we happened to have a whole other side mirror stowed away. And Nuclear Engineer Rick is probably the only person who can figure out how to disassemble the mangled mirror and attach the spare. We are off like a herd of turtles about four hours behind schedule.

Needless to say we didn’t get very far….we were both rather frazzled and made it only 125 miles to Clarksboro, NJ. Timberlane Campground goes
under the category of a stop-over only…definitely not a destination place. But the people were incredibly kind and made room for us in an oversold park after hearing our story of woe.

It’s not a particularly attractive place, but if you need to keep kids amused, there is a pool, fishing pond, batting cage and basketball hoops. For us, it was wonderfully quiet. We grilled semi-prepared shish-kebobs from Whole Foods, made some red rice and beans and finding an almost past-their-prime mango and avocado in the fruit basket, made what turned out to be a terrific tasting combo, cutting the fruits into chunks and dressing with a tiny bit of Key Lime dressing.

We tried to read a bit, but lights were out by 9:30.