31st July: Nickerson State Park

 RobC joined me for the drive from his house to Nickerson... all of 5 miles, but lots of fun.  Huge park in the middle of Cape Cod - between Brewster and Orleans.  

Good part of the park is there are a number of Kettle Ponds (see Kettle Ponds).  These are smallish lakes with bath house temperature clear water.  Really amazing.  Bad part (I realized later) was the park was dry-camp only - so no water and electricity hookups.  Was the first time I had tried this, and to be honest, I do not think I will do it again.  Had to run the generator every day for 2 hours, it was extremely hot and I could not run the AC, and its just more hassle than what its worth.  If I was not working, I would do it, but... that is for another day.

The routine was wake up early, walk down to the pond, swim out to the rock and back (and yes Gina, that does count as a shower), and then breakfast and start work.  Run the generator for 3 hours to charge everything back up again (and annoy the neighbors). After work, go for a bike ride one of the trails and then in bed by 9.

Gene came down for the first Thursday to Saturday, and we had Martha and Rob over for dinner - Rob did the barbecue and a good time was had by all.

 

 

 

 

 

Also went to the town beach - only townies allowed.  Its an old summer camp for kids that the town bought for lots of money, but definitely worth it.

Martha and I went shark spotting after work one day - the new Cape Cod past-time.  We saw some huge seals, and I saw (for 2 minutes total) a shark fin - not the biggest shark ever, but a shark.

Amazing having these 2 different oceans within 10 minutes of each other... somewhat like Cape Town where you can go to warm water Muizenburg on one side of Cape Point and then drive over to the Atlantic side and be in freezing water (but good surf).

 

 

The last weekend at Nickerson had the whole family down - good time was had by all.

The family doing the big loop around small and large Cliff pond.

A few more photos of us hanging with the Brewster buddies... at the beach bar at the Ocean's Edge hotel,  and swimming in the kettle ponds.

And then finally...  a tribute to Stella.  On the 24th of July she got out of the yard at 6 in the morning, and got taken by a coyote.  Nahant is being overrun by them.  The good part is we have very few skunks left, the bad part is there are also no woodchuck, raccoons and feral cats in Nahant and now they are coming after the domestic animals.  It is what it is, but very sad to lose poor Stella.

16th July: Salisbury Beach State park

Great spot.  The river mouth is the 2nd most hazardous river inlet on the East coast.  The tidal rips are just epic and there were tide differences of over 20ft which is crazy.

 

Decided that I would test taking one of the dogs RV'ing with me as I was close to home.  Decided on Stella.

 She quickly got into the RV lifestyle.

She was well behaved and I did get a lot of ladies chatting to me, but she stopped eating and really moped for Milo and Stanley, so she went back that weekend.  Maybe I will try Stanley next..

Went back to Nahant for a few nights during the week, and naturally while I was gone, a  'severe' thunderstorm came through the campsite and started blowing my carpet away (everything else was packed away).  Luckily some of the neighbors saved it.  

Also had trouble the whole week with the fridge not working.  On the Tuesday before I left, I had parked the whale in front of the house - on a bit of an incline - and the manual says do not run the fridge if not totally level, but... I thought that was only for when the fridge was running on propane (and I had it on electricity).  End of the story is some switch that has had 10000 recalls, etc. tripped and I needed a new one.

Not having a working fridge is a nightmare...  no cold beers, etc.

While waiting for the new switch to arrive, I hot-wired the fridge - basically just bypassing the switch, which everyone warns you can cause a fire and ... etc.   In any case, cold beers are more important and nothing burned down.

New switch arrived and lo and behold - reconnected it and everything worked.  And then it did not.  And then it did.  )#@*@#)*$@#)*   There was a bad connection somewhere and if I just put it in the correct place, it was fine, but bump it and ... no fridge.

Still have not resolved the issue, but the switch is in and I have cold beers.  Will need to take the Whale in for some TLC so that someone who knows what they are doing can take a look at it all.

First few nights at Salisbury had us in entertainment mode.  Wednesday night ValH who lives in Newburyport - just across the river from the park came for dinner - Salmon tacos on the griddle.  

 

  

 

Thursday night Richard and Liz dropped by.  Stripper and Cod tacos so by Friday, I was all set with fish tacos.

Had the whole family over on the weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday we had plans to go see Let the Led Out in Hampton, which is just 5 minutes away.  Met up with LizC and family and had a great tailgate at Bernie's on Hampton Beach... and then Gene and I missed the concert because of a minor ticket snafu.  However, we made some great lemonade and headed over to Salisbury beach - which is really a smaller version of Hampton beach.  Had lots of fun late into the night at the local bars.

At low tide one morning I went for a walk in the flats and saw my first blood worms - really creepy long worms that get used as bait. Bloodworms  Walked on a bit further and saw a lot of activity from a group (if they are not flying - still a flock?) of seagulls on the sand.  They would stomp their feet on the sand and then catch whatever comes out... so I went down there and did the same.  Funniest thing...
these baby sand eels - about 3 inches long come popping out of the sand.  I caught one in my coffee cup.  They were shooting out of the sand under water and swimming off before the gulls/terns/anything could get them. 

On Saturday morning I packed up and headed out to meet up with Gene and Gina. We left the RV somewhere in Dedham and headed off to Brimfield - which for those that do not know is the largest Antique market in New England where you can buy lots of stuff you do not need.  We came away pretty lite at the end of a long hot day.

I headed off to Brewster and Martha and Rob.  Timing was perfect as I arrived in time for some of Rob's freshly made lobster rolls.

5 July: Summer in Nahant

So got back from OBX and managed to get the whale settled in at the local school.

First weekend we headed off to New York on Mega bus to meet up with an old friend of Gene - Marnel and Jonathan - who was over visiting from England.  They had waitressed together in 1994ish which was the last time they had seen each other, so there was lots of catching up to do.

 

Catching up started at 12 noon at Pier 66 and ended at 12 somewhere....  lots of fun was had by all.

The next week was all at home and seeing the ground floor bathroom get redone.  Ho did an excellent job.

4th of July weekend was Saturday on the lake with Chris and Mary, Sunday on the lake with Ralph and JaneS and Monday was at the Hills in Nahant - all in all a great weekend was had and I needed to go into detox.

Tuesday I packed up the whale and headed for Salisbury State park.  Big park at the Merrimack river mouth on the other side of Plum island.