Driving on the Cape
The Sagamore and Bourne bridges serve as not only a physical gateway to Cape Cod, spanning the Cape Cod Canal, but also as a mental gateway -- on one side you're on the Cape, on the other, you're not (Wareham's insistence on being "Gateway to Cape Cod" notwithstanding).
For people with cursory familiarity of the geography of Massachusetts, once you're over the bridges, you're on the Cape, and that's it. But because of the Cape's peculiar, winding shape, that of an arm making a fist -- the result of sand and sedimentary deposits built up over eons from the confluence of two major tidal forces -- there's a lot more to the Cape than just being on the Cape.
Take tomorrow, for example. As part of her work Bonnie has to go to Eastham to give a presentation. Now, we live in Mashpee, which is in the "bicep" of the Cape. Eastham is way-the-hell up in the "forearm" of the Cape, more than an hour away from us.
Plus my daughter goes to a day program in Barnstable, which is about mid-way in between the two. Worse, we're a one-car family. So I have to drive to Eastham, drop Bonnie off, bring Emmeline to her day program, then pick Emmeline up before going back up to Eastham to get Bonnie again.
As I make my way up the Mid-Cape Highway, I get to deal with what is inarguably my least favorite stretch of road anywhere on Cape Cod -- the stretch of Route 6 between exits 10 and 12, which the locals have wryly referred to for years as "Suicide Alley." It's the spot where Route 6 turns from a divided four-lane highway into two lanes separated by nothing more than some plastic columns, a small bump of asphalt and dividing lines. It terminates in Orleans, right at the "elbow" of the Cape, in a rotary. And then is a relatively low-speed roadway for the rest of the journey.
I used to do this drive three or four days a week, back in the Bad Old Days before I started working from home.
It'd be easier with two cars, but it's not worth the expense for as often as this happens.