East Coast Road Trip: From Clemson to Montreal

We had a leisurely morning at the inn (checkout 11) before departing Nantucket on the 12:30 fast ferry back to Hyannis. We walked downtown to do a little more shopping and came across the usual funny items for sale that one often sees in tourist hotspots like this.

Fortunately, in Nantucket, we were able to escape the inclement weather that’s been in the greater area over the last day or so. So the walk down to the harbor was dry.

While walking around, we saw some crew from the in-production series “The Perfect Couple” that I mentioned in yesterday’s blog. They’re establishing the town as the 4th of July so American flags are being put up in several locations.

Later, I saw this post on social media. We saw several protesters walking around town.

We returned to the inn and hung out for a little while until we needed to walk down to the ferry terminal. It would be difficult – if not impossible – for a person in a wheelchair to visit or live here as there are relatively few smoothly-paved sidewalks. Most are made of very uneven bricks pushed up by years of tree root growth. And most of the streets in town are laid with roughly-placed cobblestones of various sizes which was an “interesting” experience riding on with our e-bikes yesterday. It felt like I got – or may need – a chiropractic adjustment!

The folks who run the ferries have the process down pat. We were on the 12:30 Steamship Authority high speed which runs 4 times a day, every 3 hours starting at 9:30. There’s also the Highline high speed as an alternative that probably runs an equal number of times throughout the day.

We brought two larger bags on this trip as we’ll be gone for nearly 3 weeks, so we were glad that we decided to consolidate just what we needed into the smaller bag for the two nights on Nantucket, which was a very wise decision considering the trek up the stairs at the inn and the very uneven sidewalks. Here’s a video climbing the stairs!

The high-speed ferry was a smooth one-hour ride back to Hyannis. We walked to the car, loaded up and pointed Google Maps towards our next Airbnb destination in Essex, CT. We were lucky earlier this morning that there was no rain in Nantucket but as we made the 2 1/2 hour drive west towards Essex, the rain increased.

Lorna collects the Starbucks “Been There” series mugs (one of the few “souvenirs” we buy on our travels) and since we were driving through Rhode Island, we found a store not far off the highway to visit. Usually, more often than not, the stores we go to are sold out of these mugs but fortunately she got the last one today.

We arrived in the small town of Essex and our Airbnb host provided excellent directions to the cottage which is located at the end of a short gravel road behind a larger main house. We fumbled trying to get the key out of the lockbox in the rain until we realized we were using the wrong 4-digit code. We ran back into the car and searched the emails and found the real password which let us into the unit finally. Some of the joys of travel!

We generally prefer Airbnbs to hotels as we usually get a better experience for the community we’re staying in, we have more space, we have less noise, we can cook in, etc. This one was no exception. Nicely appointed for a couple like ourselves staying for a couple of nights.

A few days ago, we’d purchased some items to create a basic charcuterie board for dinner which we kept cold in the cooler. Nice evening in watching some TV shows through our Chromecast connected to the TV!

Onward to East Haddam tomorrow – the reason for our visit here!