Massachusetts - Day 21 - Cape Cod

Sippewisset Campground
Friday, 21 September 2018

At my previous campground, I could tell there was wildlife around, partly because now and then I could smell a skunk, and partly because now and then Dexter, and sometimes Gracie, would alert significantly enough that I knew it wasn't another dog they sensed.

Well, the last full day I was there, the one when it rained much of the day, that morning I had the dogs out early and they got so wildly excited I couldn't hold them - actually, I was afraid if I kept holding them they'd run me into a tree.  I was handicapped by holding an umbrella and didn't want to give that up because it was pouring rain.  The rain didn't slow the dogs down and it took me some work to catch them.  I had to be careful not to yell and to sound coaxing no matter how I felt about doing all this in the pouring rain: because other campers were sleeping nearby, and because Gracie was taught by her previous abusive owner not to come when she's called, and because Dexter will come but only after his pea-brain instincts have turned off and his reason has turned back on.  A distressing incident.

Walks later that day were okay, but then there was the walk at bedtime.  I of course took a different route from the morning to avoid whatever critter it was that had gotten them so wound up - but apparently the critter also decided to move to a different place because that first one was too crowded - and we all ended up in the same place.  And the dogs went bonkers again.  And this time I held onto them for dear life, figuring running into a tree was preferable to losing them again.  No tree, but my whole right side got planted firmly into the ground.

Ever since then - that's 3 days now - my right upper arm has been hurting a lot.  I've only got about half the function of it because of the pain.  I've tried cold packs and a heating pad (at different times, of course), and neither one has made a lot of difference.  Crummy dogs.  And it makes driving more of a challenge.  Oh well.  Many lives are much much harder than mine.

today's route

Today I wanted to go out to the end of the Cape - all the way up to Provincetown - so I tried to make my way up to Route 6, which is that limited access road I was on yesterday.  The campground had provided directions, which included eventually getting on Rt. 149 that connects Rt. 28 along the southern edge with Rt. 6 along the northern edge.  Simple enough, except Rt. 149 left a very great deal to be desired.  The signage was wildly insufficient - along the road and at the roundabouts (they LOVE roundabouts in this part of the state) and at T and Y intersections - I kept having to guess and hope which was the right road and somehow got lucky enough not to have to turn around anywhere.

On Rt. 149 (which is only about 3 miles long, you wouldn't think it could be such a nuisance in such a short distance), I saw 6 UPS trucks and 6 FedEx trucks.  Who does their scheduling?

All over the state, I've noticed that at road construction sites it's the police who direct traffic, not construction workers.  Everywhere.  Apparently it's how they do things in Massachusetts.  I've never seen that anywhere else.

All along the way I went through forested lands full of pines and oaks.  Over by Provincetown when the road started going through the Cape Cod National Seashore, the pines and oaks plus grasses were holding together huge sand dunes on both sides of the road.

Pilgrim monument

Provincetown was once a quaint little fishing village, but those days are but a distant memory.  Now it's a full-fledged tourist town that's impossible to navigate in.  My main goal there had been a monument to the Pilgrims, because before they landed at Plymouth Rock, they landed on Cape Cod.  Well, I found it ... and drove by it ... and that's all I could do.  Zero parking on the street, so I followed a sign that directed me to parking, and got there - which was up on the hill above the monument - and found I'd have to pay $15 to park, which of course I didn't want to do since all I'd wanted was to take a picture.  So I told the nice elderly man that I'd been hoping for some free parking, and he said, "Free and Provincetown don't go together."  Cheerful.

crowded streets of P-town

But he was right.  When I got back down the hill and down by the water, I found another parking lot with the same price and a man telling me to turn around and go left and then go straight for the campus.  I couldn't figure out what campus he could possibly be talking about and why he assumed I wanted a campus.  So he repeated it twice and FINALLY I understood he was talking about campers - not campus.  I swear it sounded like campus.

Of course, the space he wanted me to turn in was pretty tight for a campus and I was eyeing it, trying to figure out if I could do it, and he kept telling me to turn around, turn around, like I couldn't understand English.  And then he walked away and a 2nd man walked slowly in front of me up to my window and said the same thing - though if he hadn't been holding me up by walking slowly in front of me I'd have already turned around.  Jiminy what a place.  So I left.

And found sanity just across the highway at the Cape Cod National Seashore.  There was a road up to the top of a hill and I had a nice view of sand dunes and a bit of Atlantic Ocean.

The dogs could get out and stretch their legs and we had some lunch in the fresh air.

On the way back down the Cape, I passed a sign that got me curious, talking about Historic Route 6.  So I looked it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_6  The signs they have photos of on that website are the ones I saw by the road there outside of Provincetown.  Bishop, CA, 3,205 miles away.

There's a long string of houses along the inner coastline south of P-town and not one single one had solar panels.  I couldn't figure out why.

I stopped in Eastham to see the Nauset Lighthouse, partly because it was accessible and partly because it's the lighthouse on the Cape Cod Potato Chips package.

I saw a youngish woman and her boyfriend walking toward the lighthouse and was astounded at her completely inappropriate attire.  She had on a mostly red with white dress, red very-high-heeled shoes, and a huge white flower in her magenta hair.  To walk in sand dunes by the ocean.  Oh well.  I know they both thought she was gorgeous because I had to wait a while for them to get out of the way so I could take a photo without that red dress showing up like a spotlight.  And while I waited I saw her strike poses and twirl her skirt around, and he took photo after photo.  But they were clearly happy and weren't hurting anyone so please don't think I'm judging.  I just thought it was quite odd.

At the Visitor Center for the Cape Cod National Seashore, I learned that when mile-thick glaciers covered the region, the sea level was about 400' lower.  As the ice melted beginning about 18,000 years ago, the water rose about 50'/1,000 years.

Erosion is a fact of life along the seashore, and 2.8'/year is eroded from Eastham, Wellfleet and Truro, with the sand being deposited on the shore at Provincetown and on the barrier beaches to the south.  Scientists expect erosion to increase as global warming melts glaciers which raise sea levels.  They've had to move at least one of the lighthouses twice already with a third move likely.

All along Cape Cod I kept thinking about Kurt Vonnegut.  When I was in the 10th grade or so, our English class read "The Report on the Barnstable Effect," which was in our textbooks.  I didn't learn until years later that it was one of the short stories in Vonnegut's Welcome To The Monkey House, but I remembered the story quite well and liked it a lot.  As an adult, I found his collected works dark enough to induce suicide.  But I still like Monkey House.  The title short story is set in Hyannis.  North of Hyannis is the real-life town of Barnstable.  And that's why I keep thinking about Kurt Vonnegut.

I got curious and have learned that he lived in Barnstable for about 20 years, and he owned and operated the first Saab dealership there in the 1950s.  He said later the fact that he wasn't very successful at it was the reason the Swedes never gave him the Nobel Prize for Literature.  He wrote most of his major works in Barnstable.