Road Rave July 17 and 18

Since April, we have been readying our Treehouse for two new dwellers and prepping our Skylark for our Road Rave trip. Until 3 weeks ago, Road Rave was "off in the distance"... "can you believe we're pausing our Treehouse life until next spring?" The realization gradually dawned on us as our go-date approached. All these practical details organized our Treehouse and our Skylark but did not prepare our headspace! The kindness of our family, friends, and colleagues has been a tremendous support. We appreciate the dinner invitations, get-togethers, phone calls, Facebook messages, gifts and mementoes.  We are going to miss each of you and look forward to hearing from "home".

Road Rave 2014 began at 5 Thursday morning. We pulled out of the driveway for our first destination, the Yarmouth ferry. We boarded the ferry at 9:15, sailed at 10am and arrived at 7:30 pm. We breezed through Customs. We had our deferred leave paperwork ready, but it was not requested. The border guard asked for my occupation. He responded "that must be tough".

It was a 45 minute drive to Kittery, Maine where we "camped" for the evening in a parking lot. The light standard with the welcome sign guided us to our "reserved spot".  At 9pm, we settled into our Skylark bed far away from our Treehouse bed. City noises surrounded us.

At 7am, Jonathan and I opened our Skylark door to glorious sunshine. The plaza landscaper was tending to the gardens.  From across the street, we ordered Subway breakfast sandwiches then settled into our camp couch.  Tangier's Shopping Plaza provided our wifi.  The power-scrubbers were in full force at 8am cleaning the vinyl siding at Subway. The plaza stores started opening at 9am. Kittery was waking up, and I settled further into my camp couch.

Jonathan went on recon for footwear stores. He reported back and we explored his list of suggested stores. We returned to our first destination and I treated my feet to a pair of Oboz. Check out their website: http://obozfootwear.com/ethics/#one-more-tree   We paid for our campsite in meals and hiking shoes.

I'm updating my blog from Cape Cod. People from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, New Jersey... all liked the Road Ravers' idea to travel to the Cape for the weekend. Some bottleneck traffic due to lane closures, but cooler heads prevailed with the help of classical music and salty snacks. Only during the last leg of today's journey, we had to make one minor adjustment to our route due to a missed right turn. Ten minutes later, with the help of Garmin (our GPS), we found our way to my family's Cape Cod home.  Aunt Margaret showed us our camping spot, next to their driveway.  Jonathan and I took turns navigating and steering our Skylark into position. Aunt Margaret set out a tasty array of appetizers. I tried horseradish hummus for the first time, and I am looking forward to many repeat visits!  After a dinner of steak with all the trimmings (baked potato, corn, squash, and caesar salad), we were well-revitalized for a walk on the beach. On our return, we stopped in to visit Aunt Margaret and Uncle Chuck's neighbours: Ruth and Paul, and Bev, who is visiting from Connecticut. Ruth and Paul have visited many of the national parks we are going to visit.