A Lovely Late Start

Rehoboth Beach, DE

Can you say “ruh-HOE-buth”? I thought not. That’s the way the motel keeper pronounces it and she’s lived in this part of Delaware all her life.

But I’m ahead of myself. Return with me to Ashland, Mass.

I wasn’t sure if Old Danny Boy was going to drag himself away from Quent and Joann this morning or not. He lingered over breakfast. My wheels did not roll until 7:30, that’s late for us. You see, ODB and the Sewells go way back. They met in 1960, when ODB really was a boy and folks actually did call him Danny. Joann still does.

In ‘64, the Sewells moved away. ODB rode a Greyhound to see them once in ‘65 – from Iowa to Framingham, Mass. and back. And that was the last time they saw each other until Monday afternoon. After 47 years, they had some catching up to do.

Joann fixed massive amounts of really fine food. Quent gave ODB the Grand Tour. But mostly – and bestly – they talked, laughed, shed a tear or two, waxed profoundly, ranted politically (staunch libs, they and he), and listened to music made back in the day.

 We arrived to a big sign on the front of the house.

After casually mentioning that his accommodations were the best he’s had yet – except, maybe, for the lack of randomly scattered dog food (a perk he enjoyed so much in Abilene, Texas). ODB’s day was made when he walked into his room later that day.

Finally this morning they gathered round yours truly, they hugged, they said loving words and they hugged again . . . and then we were off on Leg III, The Ride Home.

About two miles down the road we rolled over the big blue Boston Marathon starting line. It’s painted permanently on the street there in Hopkinton. Then we worked our way over to New York’s Taconic Parkway, an amazing road that is limited to passenger vehicles, but no campers RV’s, or trailers. This divided two laner is posted at 55. It had very little traffic, no stop signs or signals, no driveways, and very few cross roads. It was like driving through a 60-mile long park. Oh yes, it had no tolls.

Unlike New Jersey’s Garden State Parkway, that has a toll plaza every few miles. ODB grew quite proficient at throwing handfuls of quarters into the big catch basins at the exact change stations. Traffic on that “Parkway” was atrocious. In all fairness, it does go through some highly populated areas (Newark, for one). Still, who ARE all those people and why are they all going in the same direction at the same time? And fast? Are you kidding me? All four lanes were running 75 to 80. Posted speed? 55 MPH.

Thanks to ODB’s superior planning, we arrived at the Cape May Ferry as the boat was leaving the harbor. We had to wait 90 minutes for the next $31, 17-mile, 85-minute ride across Delaware Bay. Still, it was a beautiful day in Cape May, as it was all the way from Sewell’s to ruh-HOE-buth.

(Google Map Update)