Monday

Sunday had been a cloudy, dark day, threatening rain and delivering in spats.

 

On the Cape, mornings often start out cloudy. When I woke, this is what I seemed to face from the light filtering between the louvered shutters on the lower half of the window (most of the window was also covered by a blind). When I emerged from the bedroom, though, I had to say out loud, “Wow!” The sky was gloriously clear. The kettle pond across the road was a magnificent blue. I made coffee and went outside, in nothing but my light bathrobe, to sit on a lawn chair and just listen and look. The air Sunday had been heavy and thick with something – moisture, maybe? – but this was nice. The scrub oaks and pitch pines rustled overhead. I saw a cardinal fly by, and heard sweet calls by a bird that I didn’t recognize.

 

I read a bit more from Le Guin’s Changing Planes. Eventually the rest of the household emerged. Samurai didn’t want breakfast, but she did (as I’d hoped) want to go kayaking at a spot I’d read about in a book I’d bought a year ago, the Pamet River in Truro. I told her I needed to eat something, so ate a frozen waffle left courteously by the previous guest in the freezer. (Juice, too, purchased Sunday by me.)

 

On the way up, I had to buy gas. $3.1495!! Yikes. As we went further up the Outer Cape, the prices got even higher.

 

The guidebook had said the launch site parking was free, but the book’s copyright is 2000, and guess what? Times change. Now $5 per boat, per harbormaster. Fortunately, I had $10 on me.

 

We’d argued a bit, samurai and I, on where to put in. I’d wanted to do the part of the river east of Route 6, paddling up to its source through a series of kettle ponds almost to the Atlantic side. I thought it would be more interesting, and I still think I’m right. She wanted to put in at its mouth on Massachusetts Bay. She won.

 

She wanted to first go out into the harbor. We approached a rock with a flock of cormorants on it. Then we turned back to the river mouth. We were fighting both the current and the retreating tide (another reason I’d wanted to put in upriver, where the tide would have less effect). But it wasn’t bad.

 

The trip was pleasant and meditative, but after a while, the scenery became much the same: big hummocks of tall grass, a meandering river, an occasional house. With the tide running out, the banks were about three feet high and pocketed with mussels closed tight and scurrying fiddler crabs.

 

Neither of us had had lunch, and she hadn’t even had breakfast. Eventually we agreed to turn around.

 

Now I had what I call my Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery Moment.

 

The main channel had switched back and forth repeatedly. Between the hummocks, we could see the main channel we had traversed on our way upstream many turns ago. Surely we could take a shortcut between them!

 

I, Captain William Clark, proposed it, and she, Captain Meriwether Lewis, announced she’d go first. She started off through a gap between two hummocks, the main channel in the distance.

 

I followed.

 

Only to find the water was too shallow to support either of our craft.

 

I had already taken off my Tevas when we launched, so I climbed out into the ooze and began to haul my kayak back toward the deeper water from which we had come. With each step, I seemed to sink deeper and deeper, the probably anaerobic mud seeming to pull me down. I began to get a little scared, frankly – especially as I began to experience the symptoms of hypoglycemia (any of you reading this far who don’t know much about me, I have diabetes and use an insulin pump).

 

Gasping, I finally made it to the deeper water and stumbled into the kayak, black mud almost up to my knees. I downed two glucose tablets. (Later threw in a third.) I drifted in the water, relieved, sticking out a leg one at a time to rinse off the mud, but worried that I wasn’t seeing samurai, who’d said she would follow me.

 

I turned and headed back upstream.

 

Fortunately, she emerged soon after – rueful, for she, too, had had to slog through the deep mud, and her capris were muddy up nearly to her knees.

 

The reason I made reference to Lewis and Clark, FYI, is I seem to recall that they (from their journals, not from past life experience!) ran into similar trouble at least once while following the meanderings of the Missouri River as they neared the Rockies. They, too, were looking for a shortcut.

 

I told samurai that the way back (assuming we managed to stay in the main channel) would be much faster, because we had both the river current and the outgoing tide in our favor. It was – amazingly so. We were back to the launch in no time. Got the kayaks up on the racks and declared ourselves hungry. I started driving, envisioning a place but not sure quite where it was.

 

Sub ‘n Cone

 

Perfect! The perfect kind of cheesy place for a Cape Cod post-kayak fest. She had a foot-long hotdog, I a cup of clam chowder, and we shared a small serving of onion rings.

 

When we got back to our place, we both swam a bit on our own kettle pond, and showered (separately) in our outdoor shower.

 

Husband had spent the day reading and napping. Now he is quietly playing his electric guitar, and I’m about to serve dinner.

 

As my husband’s grandmother often wrote at the end of a diary entry in the 1920s,

 

“A good day.”

( Photos from the Lewis and Clark exploration of the Pamet River  )

Rare sightings of a sky shark and the Atlantic ar-wahan

Wrtiten Tuesday:

This morning I was up first (as is usually the case during summer vacations). Turned on the radio in the house for the first time since our arrival because I wanted to know the weather forecast. Turns out yesterday, Monday, will be the best day of the week. Today was forecast as clouding up and humid, and ditto Wednesday (with chance of showers p.m.) and Thursday.

 

My reason for the forecast was sparked by an interest we novice kayakers have in returning to the Herring River, in which we ventured downstream last summer. Samurai is now willing to explore upstream, which (from the description in guide book) will be even more interesting than the further-upstream travel on the Pamet River that I was denied yesterday.

 

When she and spouse finally emerged from their beds, she and I agreed to try the Herring River tomorrow. Today, it being cloudy and windy and she hankering to fly a kite, we would go to the ocean. Spouse wanted to finish reading a book, and then he would check out a pond that supposedly had trout in it.

 

We rolled into Orleans to find one of their craft and art fairs going on, which attract not just local artists, as we were to discover, but vendors from as far as Florida. To my surprise, samurai indicated an interest in stopping there. (She normally would not be interested.) She found a vendor selling Cool-Wraps, attractive, narrow scarves that can go around your neck and that have interior beads of something that hold coolness from being soaked in cold water for a long time. She bought one ($6, my moola) for her trip to D.C. The advertising said they were good for

 

Migraines, asthma and hot flashes

 

Since I know at least three people on my flist who have migraines aggravated or maybe triggered by heat, here is the web site:

 

www.cool-wraps.com

 

By the time we got to the National Seashore, the tide was very high and the beach very crowded. So much for kite flying. But we hunkered down, as the tide was on its way out. By 3 p.m., the families with young children in dire need of naps were departing in droves. Lest I sound unkind, in years past, I have been one of those parents! Hence, I knew the pattern.

 

The tide began to ebb and there was enough room to fly the kite, which is a “sky shark.” Unfortunately, a drop in wind or a downdraft sent the shark into the back of a chair occupied by a boy of about 10. He took it well. We told him he could tell his friends he was attacked by a sky shark at Cape Cod.

( Sky shark!!!! )

 

I had told samurai that I thought my haircut from last week was the best ever, and I wouldn’t mind if she took a photo of me so I could have a record for April, who cut it. She took a candid shot, but the hair is windswept, shall we say… Still, it gives you a sense of what I look like.

( Under here )

 

On our way home, we picked up a copy of the Cape Codder weekly paper to figure out what the local tides will be tomorrow. Looks like to catch the rising tide, we should be at the Herring River launch site around 10:30.

 

This works out well, because our friend Stan, who cannot drive because of recent heart surgery, is coming down to join us for a few days. A friend driving in to Boston anyway will drop him off at the Wendy’s restaurant in Milford tomorrow around noon. My husband will pick him up and bring him the rest of the way. So he and we will be leaving about the same time, and probably returning to this little house at the same time as well.

 

I was going to go out in search of a hot spot (Internet) again today, but have decided against it, even though a number of you are much on my mind and in my heart, and I long for news of you. Maybe I’ll try it early tomorrow, before others are up and before we leave for the Herring River. Maybe if I go to the Subway and buy coffee, it will assuage my guilt at using it. Or – here’s an idea! – I can order sandwiches to go to take with us kayaking! Win:Win!! (Except when I just called the number on the take-out menu to find out how early they open, there was no answer. And it’s only 7 p.m. here. I called twice.)

 

So I won’t do that. If I’m up early enough, I’ll go to the town library, which is further away, but which has 24/7 access, if I can figure out how to log on (there are instructions, but do I need to be logged on to get them? Hmm.).

 

My husband just came back, sans trout. The water is too warm in the ponds. He did catch a few small, small-mouthed bass but threw them back.

 

Now I will haul myself from my lawn chair and begin the assemblage of hamburgers.