An Unexpected Detour to Cape May, NJ

We thought we were heading right for West Chester, PA after our time at the Delaware Water Gap, but we couldn't get a spot at the RV park we wanted until a little more than a week later, so we had some time to kill.  But we never kill time, we dance with it! So Rick suggested a visit to Cape May, and off we went. Just an example of the beauty of a life on the road.

I've always wanted to visit Cape May, because the birding is supposed to be so good, but I thought it would be too much to pack into this trip through the northeast. We were also feeling a little hesitant to drive through New Jersey, which we think of as too congested. But with the help of local friends George and Peggy, Rick found a great route from the Delaware Water Gap, around the worst of the traffic and down the Garden State Parkway. Easy peasy.

Our first evening in Cape May Court House, at the Big Timber Lake Family Camping Resort we thought we'd do a little local exploring and try to find the ocean. Heading due east, we found ourselves in Stone Harbor, just in time to see the beach...

a bit of the harbor...

and a sunset followed by dinner at Stone Harbor Pizza. Stone Harbor is a pretty impressive little community. Very high end homes and a beautiful, well cared for beach.  Since we are here after Labor Day, there are no beach parking passes required for any of the beaches. Nice.

The next day I got up early to find some sunrise birding action recommended by Paul Kerlinger on one of the many wonderful websites about Cape May. He outlines in great detail where and when to go birding if you have only one day on Cape May. Luckily we have more than a day, but his article was a great way to get started. Unluckily, the weather was not conducive to birding. It had been very hot, heavy, muggy and windless here all week (you can even see it in the sunset above), and everyone was waiting for a cold front to blow in from the northwest to bring some migrating birds with it.  

Later that day Rick and I explored more of Cape May and ended up at one of the town beaches. It was a pretty good beach day, but the warm humid wind was kicking up a lot of sticky sand. We stayed a couple of hours anyway and worked on our tans.  Afterwards we drove around the town of Cape May to get ourselves oriented. 

We saw some of the colorful Victorian painted ladies that Cape May is famous for, and these large Victorian guest houses overlooking the ocean.  We also found one of the marinas so Rick could look at some boats.

We worked our way to the Cape May Point State Park, with its eerie WWII bunker on the beach...

and the Cape May Lighthouse. I ended up seeing a lot more of Cape May Point State Park and the lighthouse.

We spent most of the next day at the Stone Harbor town beach. The weather was starting to shift - it was a perfect beach day - warm, sunny and breezy. Very relaxing.  

That evening I drove down to Sunset Beach to see a couple of things it's well known for besides its sunsets. Cape May diamonds are ocean rounded quartz crystals that can be found among the polished pebbles on this particular beach.  There's at least one in the picture below. See if you can find it.

The second cool thing about Sunset Beach is the WWI concrete shipwreck of the SS Atlantus, just off shore. Who even knew there were such things as concrete ships? Evidently they were built at a time when steel was in short supply. They were not a success.

The third unique phenomenon at Sunset Beach is the nightly flag lowering ceremony hosted by Marvin Hume, owner of the local beach concessions. He engages the local children in the ceremony that honors fallen US war veterans, as Kate Smith sings the National Anthem. Sweet. 

I took the long way home via the Cape May Point State Park (again) to see the lighthouse at night. Worth it, don't you think?

And I couldn't resist another detour through the Washington Street Mall, the Cape May main street, to take more night light photos. It was a perfect, warm night to be out. All the shops are the original Victorian buildings. It's kind of a cross between Disneyland and Provincetown. 

Now, this may seem like a very full visit to Cape May already, but it had just begun. On our first day in town, while perusing the local websites about birding, I found a class being offered the upcoming weekend, on birding photography. Perfect, right? So I had to do it. Rick would have loved it to, but... it's football season.  

So, come Saturday morning, I buckled on my birding equipment and hit the refuge. Below are my fellow birders. There were just seven of us in the class, with Scott Whittle (tall guy in the center) as our teacher and guide.

Speaking of equipment. Every birder needs binoculars, and I was using my new Bushnell's. They worked great, but what I wanted to share is this thing that makes using binoculars so much easier. Rick and I both now use Rick Young Outdoors Ultralight Binocular Harness, a simple, lightweight little gizmo that takes the weight of the binoculars off your neck, stabilizes them against your body, and puts their weight onto your back. Now our binoculars are not very heavy, but after hours of birding, the strap can really do a number on your neck. And, if you are managing a camera or two and binoculars, there can be a lot of dangerous (to the equipment) swinging around of stuff. So this little harness keeps the binoculars tucked tight to your belly until you need them. You could completely forget your binoculars are even there, and it's simple and inexpensive. Get one.

So, the purpose of this class was to get better at seeing and photographing birds, and it was excellent. Out of about a zillion pictures I took, a few were pretty good. The first is not a great shot, but the silhouettes of these glossy ibises were cool. The amazing thing is that I got them as they flew by. This is one of the things we were working on in the class.

Another thing we worked on was placing ourselves in the right location in relation to the bird. This is not so easy in many circumstances, but we practiced on the beach in relation to some gulls that stand around a lot.  By placing myself below the dune from this guy, and in line with the lighthouse, I got this shot.

I have to confess that I did poorly on the little birds in the bushes. Scott Whittle is an expert on warblers and is a genius at this kind of photography. Check out the website about his book on warblers.  I did a bit better with the big birds. Below are a couple of shots of swans coming in for a landing. You just have to be ready with your camera on, with the right settings, aim at their heads and take a heck of a lot of pictures.

I like this guy water skiing.

During the two days we spent a lot of time in the State Park, because it has quite a few different  birding environments: seashore, ponds, marshes, and scrub forests.  The wind had turned on Friday, so there were more birds than earlier in the week. Still, all the local birders agreed it was not yet peaking. But that was fine, as there was still plenty to look at. The weather, wildflowers and insects were all beautiful.

This was a long post! If you've gotten this far, thanks for hanging in there.

I'll finish with one of my favorite shots from the weekend.

Next, we ride the ferry to Delaware.  Bon voyage!

Until Today...

Kona loved to swim,

especially when there was a ball to be had.

She lived to swim, and did so effortlessly from the first time she splashed in.

Until today, Kona loved adventure, especially if there was hope of a swim. 

She always had high hopes for a swim.

She loved to take Lenore on a long hike, whether in the snow or the desert. 

Kona loved people. She was always happy to make new friends and harvest affection 

wherever she could. She was good at it.

Until today, Kona loved to roll in the grass, the snow, the sand, the dirt, especially after a swim.

Kona loved to stand with her face in the wind while it blew through her coat.

  Kona loved to eat, and loved to wait for the portion of food that Rick always saved for her.

Kona loved us, and we love her still, forever.

Kona was with us here, until today. 

Wherever Kona is now, we know she is wagging her tail 

and swimming in the effortless love she was born to express.

Thank you Kona for sharing your love with us.

Until we meet again...

On The Move Again

During our last few days on Cape Cod the sun shown for a few hours, and I got out to the beach and to the salt marshes to do a little photography. Rick got another visit in to Gull Pond. We spent more time with friends, as seems to be what this summer was all about. It was hard to say goodbye, but that's also what this life is about.  We hope we'll be back and that our friendships will stand the test of time and distance.

Salt Pond, Eastham, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

We have now embarked on our drafted trajectory toward the south/southwest for the winter.  There will be a couple of short stops to see some things of interest, the first being the Delaware Water Gap. After that we'll stay a few days just west of Philadelphia to see the Winterthur, Longwood and maybe Chanticleer estates and gardens. Then straight west across Pennsylvania to check out Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water. We've loosely sketched a southern route from there that includes Nashville, Graceland and the Natchez Trace, and we hope to be in Louisiana for Christmas. That's about as firm as we've gotten for now, but I think Utah, Montana and the eastern Sierra's are on the wish list for summer 2014. We'll see how that all unfolds and we hope to see you on the road.

Seal Watching out of Chatham, MA

Yesterday we had a window of good enough weather (no sun mind you) to get out on the water for an adventure with Beachcomber seal tours. The company is located in Chatham, at the elbow of Cape Cod.

As you can see, Cape Cod is shaped like a flexing arm, with Provincetown at the fist. We spend most of our time on the forearm between Eastham and Wellfleet, so it was a nice change to venture south to the more populated elbow. It was kind of a last minute decision and we felt fortunate to get a reservation on the 2 pm boat tour that leaves from an inland location at Chatham Boats.  

A trolley took us and about 12 other passengers to Ryder Cove where we boarded the boat.

After cruising slowly out of Ryder Cove, past Strong Island and many large, classic Cape waterfront homes...

we approached a sand bar where hundreds of grey seals rested.

We putted slowly up and down the sand bar several times, close enough to get some interesting shots.

Our captain/guide told us these were a mix of males and females...

the males being larger and solid dark brown and the females being smaller and speckled.

They made sounds that in chorus were kind of eerie, like a cross between singing and the wind blowing. Occasionally you'd hear a roaring single voice raised above the rest at a moment of some altercation.

There was lots of jockeying going on for space, our guide explained, because the males don't like to be touching one another. If they get too cozy they have to negotiate with their neighbors for territory on the small sandbar.

After viewing the seals for awhile, our captain showed us a few of the other local sights around the bay. On one of the larger sand bars there was some kind of an event (funeral, wedding, concert, party?) going on with boats parked nearby, lots of people gathered. You can just see one of two speakers they had mounted near the center of this picture among the standing people.

We motored by the Chatham Light as well, and popular Chatham Light Beach.

The day was overcast but not cold, thank goodness, because it was pretty windy out there. The rain held off until late at night, when we got some pretty heavy thunderstorms.  We joined our friends Beryl and Ray for BBQ at Marconi Beach Restaurant on Rt. 6 in Wellfleet. I think there are more restaurants, bakeries and delis here than anything else. You gotta eat, even when it rains, right?

Today it is cloudy again, with rain threatening - a perfect opportunity to work on the blog. We'll have our friends over for dinner tonight, for some more good times. Maybe a salad would be nice to balance out all this heavy restaurant food.

Cape Cod: The "Perfect" Vacation with Friends and Family

WARNING! Snide post ahead. Cape Cod lovers may want to turn back now.

For many people, Rick included, "The Cape" is practically holy. (In fact writing this will probably put me at risk with my loved ones.) Their families came here when they were kids, and it's just in their blood. It doesn't matter that the weather on The Cape seems to be bleak, cloudy, foggy, cold, windy, you name it, none of what you'd call beach weather. But folks still come here waiting for those few glorious days of sunshine, pleasant ocean breezes and warm temperatures. They have faith. They have memories. Give me the Bahamas.

And let me tell you about the beaches. There are three kinds of beaches on The Cape: the ocean, the bay and the ponds. You have choices!

Above is Marconi Beach, with the ubiquitous enormous dunes to scale, red tides, seaweed, jelly fish, and oh yeah, warnings:

But no biggie, just pop on over to the bay side where you'll find oyster shells and horseshoe crabs under foot, generations of sea grass tangling the murky salt water, occasional closures for polluted waters, but no sharks. Give me Hawaii.

But, if you have the right town beach pass, or it's dawn or twilight, you can head for one of the ponds. Rick loves Gull Pond, because that's where his family went.

Ah, fond memories of romping in the refreshing cool water after a long hot day in the salt water and sun. I don't know, it looks kind of cloudy in these pictures too. Heck, I'd even take Fort Lauderdale!

OK, so the weather may be dreary here on "The Cape," but the company sure isn't. We're parked in Eastham at Atlantic Oaks, a campground very close to where my two best friends from childhood, Linda and Beryl, and their husbands Thom and Ray, are staying in Welfleet. They come to the Cape every summer (they've got the history to buoy them up) and we were finally able to join them here this year.

Being with these guys is pure love. I just get really gushy about it. These are the kinds of friendships that last for decades, forgiving mistakes and surviving long distances of time and space. I don't care if the sun never shines, as long as I can sit down to dinner with my friends at the end of the day and laugh about it all. No perfect beach could beat this.

Thanks, my loved ones, for a perfect Cape Cod experience.