Day 130, Saturday October 12, 2024: Bethesda, Maryland to Cape May, New Jersey

Carnegie libraries visited: none.

Days sober: 477

My library tour was interrupted for two months because, as I’ve often heard in recovery meetings, “life got lifey.” I was disappointed, and also relieved that I have the serenity to accept those things I cannot change. I had hoped to make one continuous loop through the 48 states, backtracking the least amount possible, so when I finally use a Sharpie to draw my route on a US map I could – at least in principle – do so without lifting the pen from the paper. I suppose I could have driven right back to New York and picked up where I left off. This seemed like being too dogmatic. I thought back to the laying of the transcontinental railroad. It was not built in one continuous line from east to west (or vice versa). It started from each end and the Golden Spike, which completed the line, was driven where the two lines met. So with this trip. I’ll begin the final leg in Bethesda, make the drive to New York, and then end the journey in Medford, Massachusetts, where I will make my new home.

My original itinerary showed me driving south from Baltimore to Bethesda, visiting four Carnegie libraries in Baltimore at the beginning of the day. I thought about driving to Baltimore, and then east to Bracebridge Hall, the rehab center where I spent the 45 days that might have saved my life. Because I had previously been enrolled in a couple of intensive outpatient programs, the rehab didn’t provide me much new information about addiction, or new information that was helpful (Oh! If I had only had a better understanding of the biochemistry of addiction I could have gotten sober!). My time in rehab was invaluable mainly because it gave me a safe and secure place – that is, a place without access to alcohol – to spend seven weeks. I would have enjoyed seeing it again.

Instead, I’ll drive from Bethesda to Lewes, Delaware, where I’ll catch the ferry to Cape May. My route takes me almost due east along US Highway 50 across the Chesapeake Bay and then state highway 404 to the coast. Highway 50 is the prose version of the iconic Route 66, the star of screen, stage, and song. Route 66 runs for some 2,500 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles. If you’ve seen the movies The Grapes of Wrath or Easy Rider (or Bagdad Cafe, No Country for Old Men, or even Cars) you’ve been on Route 66. You can watch the CBS series“ Route 66,” which ran for 120 episodes in the early 1960s. The musical “Route 66” “is an homage to good music, cool cars, and a slice of Americana that never goes out of style,” according to a 2024 review by Sarah Hovis.  The song “Route 66” (composed by Bobby Troupe) has been covered by Chuck Berry, Nat King Cole, The Rolling Stones, and John Mayer, among many others. Ask anyone – a Turkish tourist, an influencer from India, a Welsh writer, a teenager from Tallahassee – to name an American highway, and Route 66 will be the answer.

Highway 50? Not so much. Never heard of it. Even though it is 500 miles longer than Route 66, and it reaches from Ocean City on the Atlantic to Sacramento, California (before an Interstate highway replaced its western leg, it had extended all the way to the Bay Bridge in San Francisco). Life magazine once labeled it “The Loneliest Highway in America” because, especially in the western states, its route was largely rural. Unlike Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, or Peter Fonda, I’ve never ridden (or acted like I was riding) my chopper west on 66. I have driven a Honda Civic west on Highway 50. In 1995, my home in Arlington, Virginia was a short walk to Highway 50, so when I drove cross country to Berkeley, California, most of my route was along Highway 50. (I diverted south of the route to visit my parents in Arkansas, and then headed north to Kansas City to get back on it). My main companion was a sixteen cassette set of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s biography, the early years.

This trip east leads me to Annapolis. The last time I was there, Ayse and I browsed the shelves and took tea at the Old Fox Bookstore & Coffeehouse. We strolled over the St. John’s College campus, popping into the library and flipping through the list of all the senior theses written the previous year. Before heading home, we got a bite at the Galway Bay pub, which took pride that it was the only bar in Annapolis – and maybe the state of Maryland – that did not have any TVs. I had the fish and chips. I can’t remember if I had beer. If I was drinking at that time, I definitely did; if I wasn’t, I didn’t. There is no chance that I would have been open to ordering a beer and didn’t do so. That Annapolis visit was such a happy one, although it didn’t seem especially memorable at the time. I thought it was only one of what would be a lifetime of pleasant weekend outings with Ayse. 

Tuckahoe State Park is 45 minutes east of Annapolis. Ayse and I camped there one Saturday night, and I believe that was the last time I slept in a tent. I couldn’t remember how long ago that was, so I scrolled through my email to see if I could find a campsite reservation. My sister Gretchen and I joke about how the answer to any question about when something happened is “about five years ago” and that would be an underestimate in this case. We camped at Tuckahoe in September 2017. I can’t believe it’s been seven years since I’ve slept in a tent, but the truth is the truth. In the morning, Ayse and I canoed around Lake Tuckahoe and walked along a nature path, wondering at the different varieties of mushrooms we saw. On the way back to Bethesda, we stopped at a bar beside the Chesapeake Bay. The weather was glorious, and we had drinks, snacks, music and laughter. I wish I could relive those moments. Or live new ones.

I arrived at the Lewes Ferry Terminal the recommended one hour before the departure to Cape May. The terminal’s back deck includes outdoor seating for a restaurant and a bar. Most of the seats around the bar were full, and “everybody at the bar’s getting tipsy” (this line is from one of the songs of the summer for 2024, “A Bar Song,” by Shaboozey) even though most of the patrons appeared to be drinking light beers. I never saw the point in low calorie, low alcohol beers. Most craft breweries, or taverns that serve local beers, will list their offerings with some tasting notes and the beer’s ABV content. If you’re in Texas in the autumn, for instance, you might be interested in trying the Sam Arnold brewery’s Pumpkinator, which is “dark and dreamy with heavy malt and hints of pumpkin, brown sugar, molasses, cinnamon, and nutmeg” and an ABV of 10.3 percent, more than twice as high as a standard Budweiser. 

If I went to a brewpub with friends, I would typically scan the beer list and begin by choosing the beer with the second highest ABV. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the taste of strong beers, so if I ordered beer with almost the highest ABV I could justify it based on my taste preferences rather than my desire for the beer with the biggest bang for the buck. We’d stay for another round, natürlich, and this time I would order the brew with the highest ABV – “Hey, I just like strong beers, and variety, so why would I order the same beer twice?” 

Calculating, plotting, scheming. That was me and alcohol. Why couldn’t I just look at the beer menu and think “What sounds good today? What’s the speciality of the house? What goes best with whatever food I’m ordering?” And I doubt anyone – unless they were also an alcoholic – noticed my machinations. Who would care, or even notice, which beers I’m ordering, unless a) they value my opinion; b) they are concerned about my drinking. 

The restaurant’s tables were occupied mainly by couples, most often having a glass of wine or a beer with their food. I walked back and forth across the dock – as the guy wearing a Phillies hat asked, “Getting in your steps?” – and so could watch what the servers were serving. What they were not serving was endless rounds of drinks. The “normies,” as they are called, can apparently enjoy a single glass of wine before asking for the check. 

The ferry from Lewes to Cape May is smooth, with only a light breeze blowing across the bow. Two young couples were canoodling on the Adirondack chairs on the top deck, and a few other singles and couples were standing by the railing. One jeans and leather clad woman, with her biker companion, did the front-of-the-Titanic pose. Of all the times I have taken this ferry, the time I remember best was when my sons were in their peak Harry Potter phase. The most recent version had been released at midnight the night before (this was during the period when bookstores would open up at midnight for the sole purpose of serving the “we have to have it immediately” crowd) and we had picked up our copies – one for each boy – on the way to the ferry. Their noses were buried in the pages for the entire trip. This time, my nose was buried in the breeze, iPhone in my pocket except when I took a few selfies.

Cape May holds special significance for me. My first wife Lisa and I spent our first anniversary there at the Queen Victoria Inn, the fanciest B&B I had yet stayed at. My son Kitt learned to ride a bike there, on the broad and flat street in front of my sister Gretchen’s vacation home. I took week-long vacations there with family and friends over the years. I escaped there for a solo-weekend in 2006 that I wanted for reasons I cannot remember, although I remember what I did that weekend.

Gretchen and Dick had owned a vacation home in Cape May for a number of years, and they generously loaned it out to friends, family, and their housekeeper. My trips there all sort of blur together, as they were much the same. Hangout on the front porch in the mornings and late afternoons. Walk to the beach a time or two during the day. Eat dinner together with everyone who was there. I remember that the liquor store was a block away from the Acme grocery. I would always volunteer to do the grocery shopping (I never got any pushback) because doing so would allow me to slip over and get some booze. There was also a package store on the corner by the beach at the end of our walk. It was small and high end, seeming to cater to those who weren’t planning to drink the entire bottle at a single sitting. I used it as an emergency backup if I was running low and was more willing to pay a high price than to run out.

Cape May Home

I drove by this house to take a picture – it was exactly as I remembered it – and then took a long walk along the boardwalk. The sun set as a magnificent gold coin over Cape May Point. Lots of cars were parked on the wide, tree-lined streets so it was easy for me to find a place to nestle Goldfinger overnight. A public bathroom was just around the corner, and a coffee shop was less than 300 steps away.

Milton Public Library