09-28-2017: Amazing Sight!

Reva has been especially happy about spotting seals, but she wanted to see some sunning on the beach.  We did our research and learned that the seals come onto the beach in the span of time two hours before and after low tide.  We also read about a place where there is a sandbar that is a favorite of seals north of Head of the Meadow beach.  So, off we went at about 10:30 a.m. and drove to Head of the Meadow beach.  Then it was a half-hour hike up the beach to the sandbar spot.  What encouraged us was that through binoculars, we could see in the distance that there were what we hoped were seals on the sandbar.  But what we encountered there was just too amazing.  Forget about being thrilled to see 7 seals swimming in a row.

Seals on the sand bar
Seals on the sand bar

When we got nearer to the sandbar, a volunteer “seal sitter” advised us to steer clear of the sand bar because the seals are protected and should not be harassed.  The volunteer said there were probably 400-500 seals there!  And they were crammed together with literally no space between them.  If a big fellow in the middle of the pack wanted to move a bit, he just wiggled over top of whoever was in his path.

Packed tight
Packed tight

We sat and watched for over an hour.  On the upwind side of the sandbar you could smell and hear the seals.  They grunted, barked, squealed and generally made a constant rumbling sound.  There was essentially constant motion with front flippers swatting each other and hind flippers shoved up in the air.  Some were on their bellies, some on their sides and some on their backs.  Several were in an arched position with their head and hind flipper up in the air.  Their faces were adorable with big eyes. Some seals on each end on the pack flopped their way across the sand into the water.  They are such awkward creatures on land.  They flop up and down on their bellies for about 10 feet and then just flatten down to rest.  I think the effort to move on the sand is just too much for them and they have to rest every 10 feet.  And yet, they are so graceful in the water.  It seems that they are very curious because many times when their heads pop up out of the water they look right at you.  Many of the seals on the sandbar also looked often in our direction as if they were curious about us.

The volunteer said he had never seen so many seals congregated on one sandbar, so we felt really fortunate to have seen this.  The weather forecast for today was initially for rain much of the day, but by the time we were sitting and watching these marvelous creatures, the sun was out and it warmed up nicely.  We commented that we’d take this kind of rainy day anytime.

And so Reva got her wish to see seals on the beach.

Seal girl
Seal girl

After seal watching, we drove into P-town for lunch.  We parked at McMillan’s Wharf and walked down Commercial Street.  We picked Tin Pan Alley for lunch since Christine wanted a water view.  A hostess who was out front of the restaurant pulled us over, showed us the menu, and assured us there was a great water view.  She was right!

Provincetown Harbor
Provincetown Harbor
Reva and JoAnn
Reva and JoAnn

After lunch we walked up and down Commercial Street taking in the sights and visiting a few shops.  It’s always fun to stroll along Commercial because you never know what you’ll see.

After our visit to P-town we headed back towards the house.  I wanted to make a quick side trip to see Cape Cod Lighthouse.  I love lighthouses!  This one is interesting because in 1996 the whole structure was moved back from the edge of the dunes to save it from falling into the sea.  It was moved about 180 feet back from the dunes, a process that took 19 days and lots of great technology and construction effort.  But the lighthouse is saved and will remain standing for a long time.

We then got back to the house, enjoyed sitting out on the deck for a bit and then fixing dinner.  We had another nice evening at home.

09-27-2017: Fort Hill and Beach Afternoon

Christine likes sitting out on the deck in the early morning.  Today it was pretty foggy.

Christine's morning ritual
Christine’s morning ritual

The four of us have been to the Cape many times, both separately and with each other.  That makes for many “favorites” in terms of places visited.  Part of what we’ve enjoyed this week is our reminiscences about the Cape.  One place we all wanted to visit again was the Fort Hill area.  The Fort Hill area is an historic district encompassing two farmsteads with over 200 years of history.  One of the things I learned about the history of the Eastham area, where Fort Hill is located, is about the Rev. Samuel Treat who was called as a pastor to the area in 1672.  He was a Calvinist, but what struck me about him was his relationship with the local indigenous people.  Rather than trying to convert them, or worse, settlers eliminating them, Rev. Treat learned their language, visited their ceremonies, and worked to improve their lives and ensure peaceful, respectful coexistence.  I thought that was pretty remarkable.

The Fort Hill area is about 100 acres and is now part of the Cape Cod National Seashore.  It has many hiking trails and fabulous views of Nauset Marsh.  One of the trails is on a boardwalk through a swamp and red maple forest.  When we arrived mid-morning it was still very foggy so the marsh views were enshrouded in mist and fog, but since I had never seen the area in fog, it kind of added to the ambience.  We first walked down the hill to the edge of the march.  We heard lots of water birds out in the fog and liked watching the mist roll across the water.

We took a wrong turn and had to consult the trail map.

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Where are we and which way do we go??

It didn’t really matter where we were because it was beautiful everywhere and we all were enjoying the vegetation, the marsh, the views through the mist and just being outside.

Fort Hill is one of the higher elevations in the Eastham area and from the top there is a beautiful view out across Nauset Marsh.  Visibility wasn’t very good, but still good enough to see a large snowy egret standing out in the marsh.  We also saw a school group out combing the low tide marsh bottom for things.  I learned a new word from a scientist we chatted with.  The word is benthic.  The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean or a lake, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. Organisms living in this zone are called benthos, e.g. the benthic invertebrate community, including crustaceans and polychaetes.  You have to wonder how someone falls in love with mud and the creatures living in it and makes it a career.

Another funny thing I read earlier in the week, over which we’ve laughed a lot at the image, is that salt hay, marsh grass, was a food source for cows in the early days.  To keep the cows from sinking in the mud in the marshes, large pads, like snowshoes, were affixed to their hooves.  Reva and I just thought that was the funniest thing.  So, picture cows with snowshoes walking through the scene below.

Salt hay
Salt hay

Part of the Fort Hill area includes an historic house built in 1868 by a whaler named Edward Penniman.  There’s a whale jaw bone at the entrance to the property that’s pretty cool.

Fort Hill is a very picturesque area and as a rural historic district, the farmstead scene gave proof to that.

Farmstead
Farmstead

On the way back to the car, JoAnn spotted a big bird landing in a tree near the farmhouse.  As we got closer, we could see a juvenile red-tailed hawk.  It sat there unconcerned with a bunch of people coming close to get a photo.

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Red-tailed hawk

On the way back to the house we stopped at the Bird Watcher’s General Store, always a treat.  You can find whatever bird-related item you could possibly want in this store.

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I can see you now!

Back at the house, we had lunch and then – surprise – we packed up for the beach.  We’ve been so lucky with the weather.  By the afternoon the fog had cleared and it was a sunny afternoon.  Today we went to the Head of the Meadow town beach.  This is very near to where Christine and I used to camp and the beach was a short stroll through the scrub pine.  The town beach is right next to the National Seashore beach Head of the Meadow.  What surprised me was how much the dunes have eroded.  The beach is much wider than I remember with the dunes much shorter.

We spotted several seals and were thrilled when we saw 7 or 8 swimming in a row.

Seals (939x520)
Seven seal heads in a row

We also spotted several dorsal fins of sharks not too far out, which was kind of freaky.  I so wanted to get in the water.  I got up to my waist, but having read that there was a shark attack on a guy in only 3 feet of water, I was deterred from going in any further.

It was a great beach late afternoon, but the sand flies got the best of us and we had to leave.  Back at the house I cooked spiedies (no, they don’t sell packaged spiedies in Massachusetts; I made them) on the grill and we had a nice evening at the house.

09-26-2017: Walk around Wellfleet and Beach Afternoon

We lounged on the deck in the morning and watched the flurry of birds at the bird feeder.  What a lot of birds!  And we laughed at the squirrel who jumped from the tree to the feeder, avoiding the ambush of plastic bottles strung across the rope holding the feeder up.  No problem for the squirrel to jump the 3 feet from the tree, but the swinging movement of the feeder from the squirrel crashing into it nearly knocks him off.  What was really funny was on one leap from the tree, the squirrel totally missed the feeder and went sailing by it and landed on the ground about 5 feet away.

Once the fog cleared, it was a very beautiful morning and so we headed out for a walk.  We drove to Wellfleet and enjoyed the trail around Hamblen Park, starting off across Uncle Tim’s bridge.  All of us have done this walk in the past, but it is still a lovely way to spend an hour.

Reva and I walked out into Duck Creek, which was at low tide.  There were millions of mussel and clam shells littering the bottom and we crunched along.

Definitely low tide
Definitely low tide at Duck Creek

What a beautiful day for a short hike.  The scenery was gorgeous.

We then walked around Wellfleet looking in shop windows and enjoying some of the beautiful houses, yards and gardens.

Then, make hay while the sun shines, meaning another good beach afternoon.  Back to the house for lunch and packing up for the beach.

Today we went to another Atlantic beach, Le Count Hollow beach.  There was less fog today and so the beach vista was glorious.

We saw lots of seals and were amazed at how close they got to surfers, although we wondered if they thought the surfers were good to play with.  One particular seal seemed to stay fairly nearby, a large seal with what seemed like a huge head that would poke  up out of the surf and he’d look around.  Trying to get a photo, though, was futile because by the time you’d get your camera up and locate the head, it would be back under the water.  But we all had fun spotting them and looking with binoculars.

On the way back to the house, we stopped at White Crest beach, which we had driven to Sunday night in the dark.  We wanted to see the view in daylight.  This beach was higher on the dunes than either Newcomb or Le Count.  What a beautiful spot, though.

Looking for seals at White Crest beach
Looking for seals at White Crest beach

After a great afternoon at the beach we went back to the house and lounged on the deck.  Jo and I filled the bird feeder as the birds had consumed three-quarters of the tube in just 24 hours.

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Linda and JoAnn

We had a nice dinner at the house, London broil cooked on the grill, and enjoyed an evening in.

09-25-2017: Foggy beach afternoon!

Here are a couple more photos of our house.  We really like being here and the back deck is the best part.  It  gets the morning sun and is a great spot for starting our day.  We got smart and started bringing in the chairs and hammock at night so we had dry chairs for the morning.  Most nights it is very foggy and damp and everything on the deck gets soaking wet.

This is the way Reva starts her day.

This is the life!
Reva knows how to be on vacation

The first activity today was to drive into P-town to buy an Ethernet cable for Christine.  At the house, while we have a good internet connection and all of us can access it via WiFi, Christine’s WiFi isn’t functioning.  The way her computer is set up with lots of virtual machines and a bridge network, she can’t access her work stuff effectively without being able to get to her virtual machines (I know, geek talk).  I thought that part of the problem related to needing to be connected to a network from a modem and then her laptop’s bridge network would work.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have a cable.

We drove to the Conwell Home Center, a very nice, large for the area, all-purpose hardware store that has a big electronics section.  Christine found exactly what she needed.  We then drove down Commercial Street just to take in the sights.  It’s fun to be in P-town and later in the week we’ll do it up right and spend a few hours walking around.  For now, we just settled for a quick tour and reminiscing about things we’ve done and places that are still there and those that are no longer.  We all oohed and aahed driving into P-town along Pilgrim Lake.  The dunes around there are so beautiful.  Also out to the Herring Cove beach area is a wonderful sight with the dunes and marshes.

Back at the house, Christine tried out the new Ethernet card and voila, it got the job done for her to be able to access her virtual machines.  Phew!  We had lunch on the deck and then got ready for a beach afternoon.

Today we wanted to go to an Atlantic side beach.  We had a plan to check out the 4 nearest Atlantic beaches and see if any looked good.  The first was Newcomb Hollow beach, and we needed to go no further.  This was a wonderful beach.  The dune hill down to the beach was very doable.  But, what was so interesting is that while it was bright blue sky and sunny driving to the beach, once there the Atlantic beach was socked in by fog.  The visibility was pretty poor.  The waves were big and the surfers were having a great time.  There’s been a high surf advisory here all week due to the hurricanes, Irma and Marie.  Had the water been just a little warmer, I would have been out jumping the waves, but the water was just too cold.

The beach was really nice, very wide and bordered by high dunes.  Right now, the tide is high in the mid-to-late afternoon and we had to move back from our initial spot as the tide moved closer and closer.

Reva wanted to see seals.  In the fall, apparently grey seals come to the area and at low tide, they apparently come out of the water on to the beach to get warm in the sun.  We did see a couple of heads pop up out of the water just off shore.  Christine also saw either an ocean sunfish or great white shark dorsal fin bob up and down as it swam parallel to the shore.  Reva and Jo talked with a marine biologist who specializes in whales as she was walking along the beach.  She was looking for an ocean sunfish which someone reported needed to be rescued.  The funny part of the story is that Krill, the biologist’s name, spotted JoAnn’s shirt, which had fish patterns all over it, and said she wanted her shirt.  Naturally, giver that she is, Jo literally took the shirt off her back and gave it to Krill.  Krill told Jo to email her at the New England Basking Shark and Ocean Sunfish Project and she’d mail her one of their T-shirts.  She validated that Christine could have seen either the sunfish or shark and she gave us information about the seals.

After our beach afternoon, we returned to the house, rested a bit, and got cleaned up for dinner.  We had made plans to meet our friend Ellen and either one or both of her girls for dinner halfway between Wellfleet and Plymouth.  This was about a 45 minute drive for each of us.  Ellen’s wife Mary died 3 years ago, which was an awful event.  Christine and I met them in 1995 and have had visited with them, or they us, over the years.  Stephanie and Savanna are the girls, who were adopted by Ellen and Mary out of the foster care program.  The girls are now 22 and 19.

We met Ellen and Savanna at the Marshside Restaurant in Dennis.  It was a beautiful place and the seating area looked out over a stunning marsh around the Sesuit Creek  looking towards Sesuit Harbor.

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Beautiful restaurant
Our corner round table
Our corner round table
View across marsh
View across marsh

It was great seeing Ellen and Savanna.  Savanna has certainly changed and is now a very talkative, happier-appearing young woman.  She was really on a roll at dinner and entertained all of us.  Reva and Jo interacted with her in a playful way, as they do with kids.  Ellen is now working in a pet sitting service coordinating 26 staff and over 700 clients.  She still does massage part time.  It’s been a difficult time for her since Mary’s death and all our hearts go out to heart.  None of us can even imagine how hard it has been.

We had a nice time at the Marshside with Ellen and Savanna and I’m glad it worked out being able to get together.  For Christine and me, a trip to the Cape has always meant visiting with Ellen and Mary and the girls, and I hope that continues for a long time.

 

 

 

09-24-2017: Beach Day!

The rental house is a great post and beam Cape Cod style cottage that can sleep up to 8 people.  The nice thing is that two of the bedrooms had queen beds so each couple had one.  Ours is on the second floor in a room with a pitched ceiling.  The entire house is wood with exposed large wood beams and shiplap on every wall and ceiling.  All that wood makes it a little dark inside, but a wonderful feature is the deck outside.  It makes us feel like we are right in the woods as if we’re camping.  I’ll add some more photos of the place during the week.

This being Sunday, Jo wanted to go to mass.  Conveniently, there was a Catholic Church 4 minutes away.  Jo and I went to mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Church.  It’s a beautiful church, very light and airy, in a half-round configuration.  There’s a wonderful stained glass window taking up a whole wall on the side of the building.

Window at OLOL Church

Jo and I chatted with Father Hugh after the service and told him we were from New York.  He was also from New York, Westchester County, and when he heard we were from Binghamton, he said, “oh, way up there!”  I told him we don’t think of it as being upstate so much, but then I cracked him up by telling him my standard saying, “people think anything north of the George Washington Bridge is upstate.”  It was a nice church and nice service.

We had lunch at the house and then packed up for an afternoon at the beach.  We’ve been watching the weather forecast for the Cape.  It’s a good thing we didn’t come last week because there was heavy rain 4 or 5 days from Hurricane Jose that was offshore in the Atlantic.  I was afraid that maybe Hurricane Maria would influence our weather.  This week, it starts off pretty good, but by the end of the week it will be cooler and possibly rainy.  If we want beach days, we need to do them early in the week.

The house is actually in South Wellfleet, an area we are not familiar with.  We chose to head to the area called Indian Neck.  The drive along Cove Road was beautiful.  The road curved around a salt marsh and ended up at a breakwater across the harbor from the Wellfleet town pier.  We schlepped all our gear over the dune and onto the beach.  It was a great spot over looking Wellfleet Harbor!

Setting up our spot

It is a beautiful beach day – bright blue sky, low winds, temperature about 72 degrees, no clouds – perfect!  The water is pretty cold, though, and kind of yucky with lots of algae, so no one went swimming.  No matter.  It was just heavenly being on the beach.  We were close to the marina entrance around the breakwater so we enjoyed watching the boats coming and going.

I took a walk down the beach and enjoyed the scenery.

After a couple of hours on the beach, we took a drive around the Wellfleet area enjoying the beautiful scenery.  Christine wanted to have dinner at the Bookstore Restaurant and enjoy the sunset so we went back to the house to rest up a bit and freshen up.  This is what Reva does after a hard day at the beach.

Resting after a hard day at the beach

We drove back into Wellfleet to the Bookstore Restaurant and sat outside on the second floor deck.  It was a nice view of the harbor and we relaxed over a good meal.

Since it was Christine’s 3rd month anniversary of her birthday, Reva and Jo treated us to dinner, which was such a nice thing for them to do.  The sunset wasn’t very special since there were no clouds to enhance the dusk, but still, it was pleasant, until the mosquitoes started devouring us.  We decided to leave in a hurry.

After dinner we drove to the ocean side to see the Atlantic.  It was dark, but we headed to Cohoon Hollow Beach but couldn’t find a parking area, and then on down Ocean View Dr. to White Crest Beach.  There was a parking area there parked and got out of the car and stood at the edge of a dune that was quite a drop off to the beach below.  Although dark, we could see and hear the churning surf and feel and smell the salt water.  It was great.  Again, this was all new territory for Christine and I and we want to drive back that way in daylight so we can see the views.

Back to the house we went and had a fairly early bedtime.  It is exhausting having a beach day!

Dusk at Wellfleet Harbor

 

09-22-2017: Cape Cod Here We Come

Several months ago, we decided we wanted to go to Cape Cod for a vacation.  Early on in our relationship, before we had our lovely lake cottage, we camped at the Cape each summer.  Over the years, we’ve visited the Cape every few years.  Within the last 10 years or so, we vacationed twice with our friends Reva and JoAnn and had great times.  So, we decided to organize a Cape vacation with Reva and Jo.  Christine did a ton of work to identify a nice rental place.  We’ve arrived at the age where sleeping on the ground in a tent is not very appealing, nor is hiking to the bathroom in the middle of the night through a dark campground.  A house with beds, running water, a shower and toilet, and creature comforts is what we wanted.  Christine found a nice cottage in the scrub pines in Wellfleet and so she booked the place for the week of September 9-16.  A couple of days before we were scheduled to leave for the Cape, our friend Eve’s mother died and so instead of going to the Cape, the four of us got in the car and drove to Munster, IN to be with Eve.  Eve and Pat, Reva and Jo, and Christine and I, aka the 6-pack, are best friends and so there was no discussion about not going to Indiana.  Of course, we went.

That trip then put the kibosh on our Cape rental with a no refund clause in the rental agreement.  We then tried to work with the rental agent to substitute our missed week with one in October.  The second week of October is Women’s Week in Provincetown, which we thought would be fun.  Unfortunately, the owner spends October at their place in Wellfleet, but that wasn’t a given due to some issues they were having that might prevent them from traveling to the Cape from California.  The rental agent gave us the choice of coming before the end of September or take our chances that the owner might not come in October and go then, and if that didn’t work, lose our money.  Late last week we finally decided to just go to the Cape and we all rearranged our schedules quickly to accommodate a week off, September 23-30.

We packed JoAnn’s van, which is fondly named Vanna Blue, and set off to the Cape the afternoon of September 22.  We chose to drive about halfway and spend the night at a Hampton Inn in West Springfield, MA.  None of us is very fond of sitting in a car for hours at a time, so breaking up the drive in two parts seemed like a good idea.  We got to West Springfield by dinner time.  We had dinner at a nearby Olive Garden and then settled in for the night at the Hampton.

Saturday we had a leisurely breakfast and then packed up and started off.  Before leaving the parking lot, Reva noticed that several lights on the dashboard were lit up – brakes, ABS, airbags, and tire pressure.  That wasn’t good.  Fortunately, right down the road from the Hampton was a Toyota dealer.  It was a huge dealership that had a drive thru service department, which I had never heard of.  There were 2 giant bay doors and cars just line up and they take you in order, no appointment necessary.  Sitting in a dealership for a couple of hours wasn’t exactly in our plans, but better safe than sorry.  One of the things Reva does to pass the time is translate a book printed in Braille.  She’s been taking coursework to be certified in working with the visually impaired so she’s learned to read Braille, not with her fingers but with her eyes.  She is undertaking translating 5 volumes of Divergent!  She sat in the dealership writing the printed letter above each Braille letter.

Translating from Braille
Translating from Braille
Reva in the pirate ship
Reva in the pirate ship

The service guy had difficulty diagnosing some of the problems, but he did replace a cable to get the airbag deployment relay working, a good thing.  The funny part was that the dashboard lights were on, then off, then on, then off.  The guy kept driving the van around the lot to see if they’d come on, or stay off.  But, after a couple of hours, we were on our way.

Fixed and ready to depart
Fixed and ready to depart

We made it across the Sagamore Bridge and to the Cape with no other problems.  We made a stop at Whole Foods in Hyannis and then on to Wellfleet.  We picked up the keys from the rental agent and headed to our lovely little cottage in the woods.  We were happy to arrive and very pleased with the place.  We unpacked and settled in and enjoyed an evening in.  More about the place tomorrow.