Sippewissett
Campground
Saturday,
29 September 2018
 |
| today's route |
This
campground is very near Rt. 28, and as I was waiting for a chance to
turn onto it, I saw 8 wild turkeys feeding in a small plot of grass
next to the road. They were a little alarmed when I pulled up and
stopped, but then they kept on eating. Pretty neat to see so many of
them.
RV
maintenance
I
went first down the road a piece to the Jiffy Lube in Mashpee (has
to be an Indian name), a town between Falmouth and Hyannis. Jiffy
Lubes are happy to help me out if they’ve got doors big enough to
handle my little guy, and I usually call ahead but I’d passed this
one several times and could see that they did. And they did. I
walked the dogs around on a decent sized patch of semi-landscaped
lawn for a bit till they were done. A young guy who’d helped work
on it said he thought my RV was “awesome!” He said he could totally see himself driving it all over the
country. So I told him that’s what I was doing, which
he thought was a great idea.
Route
3A
From
there I was on my way back up to Rt. 3A, which runs through the
little coastal towns up to Plymouth, and the most direct way was
across the Sagamore Bridge. I decided this was a demon I needed to
face, and that I could do it in the left lane, so I did. But I was
seriously terrified – really terrified – for miles on either side
of that bridge. Anticipating it, driving it, trying to relax after
it was past – didn’t matter that I’d figured out a way to do
it. I was trembling all over, my hands could hardly hang onto the
steering wheel, my foot could hardly work the accelerator pedal, I
had to make my jaw not drop open, my breathing was haywire – it was
a real event. But I didn’t hit the curb and the dogs were
undisturbed, not knowing there was anything different going on. What
a bizarre experience.
The
Massachusetts countryside was very pretty, but the state highway
department is either truly negligent or filled with major
tree-lovers: over and over I’ve had the problem of not being able
to see direction signs clearly because tree branches haven’t been
pruned in way too long. It happened again this morning when the sign
that said turn left here was so completely covered that I could
barely read it as I drove by it just a few feet away. Which meant
that, yet again, I’d have to find a place to turn around, being
peeved because this one was definitely not my fault.
The
first turnoff that looked useful turned out to lead to the entrance
of the recycling center. This being Saturday morning, lots and lots
of people were coming to drop off recyclables, so I quickly became a
nuisance. A guy leaving the center stopped to ask if I was lost and
needed help, and I told him I was just having problems with
Massachusetts not trimming the tree branches covering their road
signs, and he agreed it was a problem. Then he said he used to have
a 27’ RV and loved it but wished he had a smaller one like mine. I
guess this was RV Admiration Day.
As I
was getting back on the right road, I saw a much larger flock of
turkeys – must have been 25 or more – feeding in a field. And
no, it wasn’t a turkey farm; it was a reservoir or pond of some
sort. Pretty neat seeing all these wild turkeys. But after all this
is the Plymouth area, and we all know what the Pilgrims supposedly
ate at Thanksgiving.
As I
was nearing Plymouth, I found a turnoff for Plymouth Long Beach and
decided it was time to stretch our legs. Smelled very strongly of
seaweed and salt water and sea smells. You can’t see it in my photo, but there’s a
lighthouse at the end of that spit of land. I think the buildings in
one of those photos are part of Plymouth, which was just down the
road a bit from here.I wasn’t interested in visiting Plymouth Rock, not believing much of the stories we’ve been told about it and the settlers, and anyway I think my family came here when I was a kid. It’s easy to see that all these coastal towns are old, and all of them are figuring out ways of reusing the old buildings while making their town continue to be relevant for them in today’s world. In other words, they don’t want to live in a museum but aren’t tearing down their heritage either. Plymouth is the same way.
From
there I turned inland along surface streets on my way to a cranberry
farm, which I found with no problem, thanks to it being just down the
road from the airport so I could follow the airport signs most of the
way.
Cranberries
 |
| cranberry fields |
 |
| everything red is cranberries |
The
water you see in these photos was not wanted – it was from that
deluge yesterday and has held up the cranberry harvest in these
fields. Industry standards say they can’t harvest as long as
there’s water on the crop, so they’ve had to suspend harvesting
until the water sinks in.
 |
| picker/pruner |
The
plants at this farm were planted 125 years ago; this is not an
industry that pulls up the plants to harvest the product – it’s
more like the grape growers who harvest while leaving the vines
intact. Like grapes, cranberries grow on vines that can get quite
long. They can mat together along the ground and inhibit new growth. Someone figured out, after an enormous storm relocated a bunch of
sand from the beach to his fields, that sand helps separate the vines
and encourages new growth (guess what farmers now do every year).
Cranberry
plants produce pretty little pink flowers which, unfortunately, don’t
make the fields look like a pink carpet because the flowers hang down
toward the ground. In June, this farm rents bees for several weeks
to pollinate their plants. When the beekeeper takes the bees home,
he harvests the honey and this farm buys it back from him. There are
apparently quite a few people who want it because it’s unprocessed
and so is useful for people with allergies (I think that’s what the
tour guide said).
You
may be able to see in my photos that this farm has a sprinkler
system, much like a suburban lawn does, and they water the cranberry
plants just as a lawn is watered. In the winter, though, they take
off the sprinkler heads and flood the fields 4”-5” above the tops
of the plants. This protects the plants because
the top of the water freezes
without damaging the plants farther down in the water.
The
cranberry growers are coming to
a crisis, unfortunately, due to increasing use by water-harvesters of
hybrid plants. They produce berries that are far larger than
ordinary cranberries, so the yield/acre is too high for the market to
bear. The USDA is curtailing production from all growers and the
price is plummeting, which means the small growers are having trouble
making ends meet. Plants with ordinary berries produce about 125
barrels/acre; hybrid plants produce 300-500 barrels/acre because the
berries are so much larger. And this is why the market’s getting
flooded.
There
are 228 different kinds of cranberries (did you know this?) and only
10 of them are cultivated. This farm grows 3 different kinds. Cranberries, blueberries and Concord grapes have always grown wild in
this country; cranberry cultivation began in the early 1800s.
More
countryside
I
had left the campground fairly early this morning so, by the time I
was finished at the farm, it was still only just after noon. I
decided to do a little more coastline driving.
The
thing about this whole southern part of Massachusetts is that even
when I’m driving on the road along the coast, I’m not on the
coast. These county roads are only 2 lane/no shoulder roads, but
whole towns and villages aren’t visible. Instead it’s like with
Sandwich the other day: I see a sign saying “Wareham Center” and,
if I want to see more than a few shops and travel-related businesses,
I have to turn off the road. That fact keeps on surprising me – I
keep on driving these small roads expecting to see the towns, and I
keep on being surprised that I’m not seeing them. (Slow learner,
here.)
This
fact was brought home to me in Wareham (pronounced ware-ham, not
ware-am like my name) at the grocery store when the young man
checking me out told me what he liked best about living there was the
beach. And I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of a beach, or of
beach-related businesses.
I
still want to visit the New Bedford Glass Museum, but by the time I
got in the vicinity it was mid-afternoon and I decided to head back
to the campground. I’ll stop on Monday on my way to Rhode Island,
I think.
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