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.