on a clear day, you can see for miles...

the salient word there is clear, and so far this year, there hasn't been much of that--at least in our sun loving memories. cloudy weather, often accompanied by precipitation, has been predominant. april and may each have had above average precip--2 and 3 inches respectively.

such were my thoughts sunday evening after a steady rain most of the day. cory and i were planning on hiking cardigan to see the sun and the moon on opposite horizons, one setting and one rising close to simultaneously. that happens once a month (theoretically it could happen twice, but i don't remember that occurring recently) + a day around the full moon.

before going to bed i emailed that perhaps we should put it off until july. in my mind, rain in the evening didn't bode well for a clear morning--not even partially clear which can lend itself to a very colorful event. i hadn't heard a peep from cory since friday when we originally talked. which also made an early morning hike less likely to happen.

when i woke up in the deep night to go pee, i knew something had radically changed. sitting on the toilet, a very bright light was shining through the skylight above my head. back in the bedroom i looked out the windows and saw plenty of faint starlight--the moon was full--and no clouds. 

even though i tried, a clear sky woke me up beyond falling back to sleep! i grabbed some clothes and made it down stairs without waking pam. it was 1:55a leaving me two hours to 'kill' before heading out. i emailed cory incase he was having the same problem sleeping, made some breakfast and a pot of tea.


i was at the trailhead at 4:05a, along with another couple with the same objective. i started hiking feeling a bit foolish for discouraging cory, but glad to be moving. it was headlamp dark until about halfway up, when i clicked it off and stowed it in a pocket. when i got up onto bare rock, it was clear all round and the moon was full, bright, and headed west. the sun was still below the horizon, but a couple of clouds near the horizon were starting to pink up, marking where it would finally show its face.

it is fairly rare to up on cardigan alone and i always relish the solitude. donning a jacket i snapped a picture of my pack resting under the moon. it was cold and windy enough that i tucked in behind the lower structure at the tower and waited.

looking off to the east i looking at a spot at the bottom of the franconia ridge line--lafayette, truman, lincoln, little haystack, liberty, and flume the over 4,000 footers--where the sun would poke above the horizon, thinking it would be so cool if it came up in a specific notch. it made me giggle that it did.




the moon was due to set twenty minutes after sunrise, but i was keeping my eye on it as it approached a thick haze. it started to be obstructed just as the sun rose above the ridge. i snapped both pictures below within a minute.



and lucky thing! in another minute, after a final swig of water, shouldering my pack, and turning to head down, the moon was barely visible. the other couple, who summited just as the action started, had settled down out of the wind looking east. if they didn't look very soon, they would miss the moon in the west.

i took mostly ski trail down, doing a bit of trail work along the way, scuffing out leaves damming up drainage, tossing blow downs--the ones i could actually move--off the path, rolling rocks out of the trail, and looking around for things that might need more attention.

back at the truck, the clock read 5:55 when i turned the key. that made me nod a yes! i enjoy digital palindromes and love that particular one. often i am setting the kettle to boil for my first pot of tea. to celebrate, i raised my thermos in a toast. going outside and playing was a great start to any day!

summer will happen--even if it has to be wet...

if the adage 'april showers...' is accurate, may should have been inundated with flowers! this year, much higher than average monthly rainfall, 2 and 3 inches respectively, has made for some cold, wet outside playtime. 

and now, halfway through june, the flowers are blooming like mad! friday, i pedaled by the junction of 4 and 4a and a sea of white daisies spilling down the road bank. that got me thinking that summer is going to happen even if it is going to be wetter than average.

i have been active enough outside though some might make an argument about my using the word playing. just yesterday, i spent ~9 hours collecting ticks--one per hour--finally planting the rest of our vegetable garden. i enjoyed it, despite a hot sun between two passing rain showers. oh, and did i mention bugs?! big winter & spring precipitation has pumped up the blackfly and mosquito population to just this side of unbearable.

two weeks ago, as may turned into june, i was down on the cape finally delivering sawyer the sewing table i made for him over the winter. i brought my bike along for a couple of days of riding. thursday after setting up the table and settling in, we took off toward the ocean. soy has done a good amount of exploring since he and hannah moved down there last summer, so well more than half our path was in the woods and along sandy access roads.

on one particularly narrow, twisty trail, we ran into a blowdown and had to dismount to climb over. as we went, i noticed a ubiquitous hazard down on the cape--poison ivy. duly noted, i picked my way carefully. we ended up dipping our feet into both the open ocean and then waquoit bay. it was an enjoyable afternoon.

friday, day two and the last one before 'the season' started with memorial day weekend, we took to the water in kayaks hoping to have low 'traffic' out on waquoit. 



soy and han house is right next to a dock on a creek flowing directly into a tidal pond. a dredged boat 'canal' or a large steel culvert both connected the pond to the bay. we took the culvert and planned on returning along the canal.



we were headed across the bay to washburn island, a popular camping spot in the national estuarine research reserve. we pulled ashore in two spots, the first midway along the eastern shoreline of the main wooded portion. we hiked up into the woods and peered about. soy and han had paddled out last fall to camp and had hiked the trails crossing the island. you could see why it would be poplular.


our second stop was out on the sandy spit at a channel into a pond on the western flank of the bay's mouth. we did a little bird watching, spotting both of the common white herons, the great and snowy egrets, willets, and a brilliant orange billed bird, the american oyster catcher.

i hadn't seen this bold looker since camping on north carolina's outer banks in 1980.

across on the eastern flank, we spotted an equally bold couple intimately enjoying their beach time in their birthday suits. we detoured into sage pond, paddling hard against a stiff onshore wind and the tide. 

after some time in the pool, we went with the flow, back out into the bay. we paddled quickly by the couple and into the boat channel. paddling past some huge boats, tied up to some even bigger docks, leading up to some downright huge mansions, i got the sense, some people on the cape have money.

when we pulled out back at soy's dock, pleasantly worked, we looked forward to making a tasty traditional friday night pizza. before going in, we checked on the porch for the moth's that had crawled out of their cocoons that morning and perched on the siding, drying out and pumping up their wings.

hannah, a professional entomologist, had four or five cocoons in a bucket, hoping for a hatch. she was away, and was missing this, so sawyer documented some of the process. it was like watching magic.

saturday, with more and more people arriving 'on cape', we planned to get back on our bikes and pedal back into the woods to avoid them. during breakfast and getting ready after, i noticed a steady engine sound just across the creek off the back porch. at first i thought it was the neighbor's boat, as i had just seen him walk past, down to the dock with his fishing gear. but no, it was a house across the way, blowing up two huge bouncy structures, a castle and a slide.

soy's comment struck my funny bone, "welcome to the cape! why have one bouncy castle, when you can have a castle and a bouncy slide?!" check out the ttyol post for a bit more to the story.

we pedaled off wondering what sort of crazyness we would run into out biking. soy took us back into the woods going away from the ocean this time. we ended up on a recently graveled power line gated a fair amount, at each road crossing. at some point we tired of the gates and took a road toward the falmouth rod and gun club, a large preserved area with lots of trails.

we got back in the woods fairly soon and road a good deal trying out new paths sawyer might use on his adventure bike meet-ups. when we hit a woods road, soy was pretty sure that we had crossed onto beagle club land. sure enough, we ran into some fencing and had to reverse it.

we passed by one of the biggest active ant hills i had ever seen. soy documented the sight with me standing beside it for scale. it was at least 4 feet across and had thousands of ants milling about. there was lots of activity a yard or two beyond the outer edge--hence i didn't stand there long. 

on the way back, a different route took us on a section of single track that ran along a trout stream in the process of being reclaimed. it was phenomenal. riding the falmouth & mashpee wilderness areas is impressive. 

as we were flying along a fairly flat area, i saw soy raise his phone and thought, "oh no...i hope we don't have another joel incident!" (you can read about that crash in a post on our gravel growler tour last august.)  just in case he was snapping pictures, i waved.

we continued through the woods until the last half mile or so to get to his driveway. i cleaned up my chain and thought, why not ride over to souke's folks house, only about five miles or so if i cut through the woods and wind through the golf course development.

i found dean cleaning a black sea bass he said was one of the best eating fish in the ocean. i noted he didn't offer me any. pat was inside reading the paper and we sat about and had a good visit. i hadn't been there in a couple of years, but things seemed very familiar.

i found another woods road to take back to soy's, making for a fine little, late afternoon loop. after loading the bike into the truck, i decided to straighten out the stones in his parking area. a bit of shoveling & some raking later and the place was looking pretty spiffy. it made sawyer smile and he was sure the dock users who walk by would appreciate the upgrade.

all and all it was a sweet visit to the cape--being outside and playing! and since i would be going back early sunday morning, i would miss the traffic too!