Woke to the sun rising and gulls flying and screeching over the parking lot. There was a McDonald's across the street for coffee and WiFi. I got the oil changed in the van and headed for Mashpee NWR, on the southeast of the Cape, near Falmouth where a ferry leaves for Martha's Vineyard. Always wanting to go to the end of the road, I got into ferry-loading traffic, but pulled into the small Woods Hole Historical Museum, where I was fascinated by a hundred 8x10 color photographs of local women "who have attained the age of 75 or older."
While in the museum I heard the ferry leave, loving the deep rich sound of the horn, and looked at other exhibits, including a Guinness record "second smallest ship in a bottle" in one-half of a red flannel-lined walnut. An adjacent workshop with local sailboats reminded me of Dave and his boat-building place.
Another of the reasons I had come to the end of this peninsula was that WHOI, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, is here and I drove into one of its "private" campuses. Doing online research, I found out that in order to access a visitor center, I would have had to go back into the severely congested Woods Hole village (a "census designated place" or CDP in the town of Falmouth), which I couldn't bear to do. Nearly the whole day involved congestion, moving east on Highways 28, through small towns, all trying to entice tourists, some with really awful tacky businesses...at least from my elitist perspective, like small theme parks and plastic inflatables. But before I seriously headed east, I had to find Mashpee.
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| Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute stuff - MA |
"Managed through a unique partnership among nine Federal, State and private conservation groups, this Cape Cod refuge preserves thousands of acres of magnificent salt marshes, cranberry bogs, Atlantic white cedar swamps, freshwater marshes, rivers and vernal pools."
The size of many of the refuges is a dynamic process as land becomes available, so often the boundaries are jigsawed and not contiguous and may in fact be separated by miles. I did find an access point and walked a mile, leaving the crowds and traffic, but even in the woods, I heard hammers. Yet, as I noted yesterday, there is still a lot of green space on the Cape; it just doesn't seem so along many of the roads.
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| Falmouth, MA |
I had made a reservation in West Yarmouth via Priceline, hating to pay what I did for a no-frills motel...very no frills, but decent Internet access, clean sheets, windows that opened and an acceptable bathroom. So often the motels are managed / owned by East Indians who are invariably efficient. I always wonder what they did in their former lives and if they are just tolerating this kind of job as a means to something more lucrative and challenging. I worked a few hours while people smoked on the balcony, or took their kids to the pool. I could watch the action in the parking lot while it slowly filled up. The gentleman at the desk kept a close eye on things. He was intelligent with slightly hooded eyes and thick dark hair, not chatty but intuitive about people, making obligatory conversation if required. Ambulances and police went screaming by regularly, at least once an hour. I decided to walk to a nearby restaurant but then didn't go in as only a few people were there, and crossing the street was hazardous.
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