Cape Cod 2011

Saturday, September 17 – travel day
Up at 5 a.m. Yuck! Coffee was the first order of business, then get dressed and start finishing packing. Suitcases (yes plural…one summer clothes and one winter clothes) and box of bathroom stuff brought down to the front door. Then all bedding put into one of those bags you vacuum the air out and it compresses to almost nothing. Bedding is kept clean and takes up hardly any room in the car.

Sunday, September 18 – Day 1
Breakfast out and then beach hopping. It was very windy and off and on showers. Good day to just go looking.

Stopped at Billingsgate Art and Antiques on Route 6 in Wellfleet (next to Dunkin' Donuts) just to see if they might have some sort of bench I can put in my bathroom. I've been looking for cane or rattan or just anything! Found this bench. Has the ugliest hand painted oil cloth cover on the seat. Seat cover will be replaced and the bench will be painted. I think I'm happy!

Monday, September 19 – Day 2
As I was huffing and puffing up this one never-ending curving hill this panorama opened up before me once I reached the top. Made all the agony worth it.

Rode the killer Province Lands dune trail. Walked only one hill. One of these years… ☺

Tuesday, September 20 – Day 3
Made my annual visit to the Birdwatcher’s Store in Orleans then walked Coast Guard Beach out to Nauset inlet. The beach has been terribly eroded by Irene and Lee. Nauset inlet is no more than a mile down the beach. Usually I plan on 1.5 miles one way…not this year.

Went to Provincetown for my annual visit there. Maybe it was because it was raining, but I just wasn’t feeling the good vibes.

Wednesday, September 21 – Day 4
Rode the Cape Cod Rail Trail from the cottage to Nickerson Park. Round trip mileage, 20 mi. Haven’t ridden that many miles in a long time.

Thursday, September 22 – Day 5

Two videos: I bet you will remember this one every time you go to buy fish! ☺
One video of the catch of the day being dumped and the other video of a seal swimming next to the pier.

For the rest of the pictures from the fish pier go to this link
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2574000469680.2154293.1244354945&l=99d0df9eb5&type=1

Chatham Fish Pier on the agenda today. Watched boats come in with the catch of the day and dump the catch down a slide into waiting containers to be transported to market. The seals were pretty cute. Thanks goodness, the waters are cooling off and (hopefully) the great whites are gone. I understand they did come into the harbor…followed the fishing boats…and attacked the seals. Glad I didn’t see anything like that.

Friday, September 23 – Day 6
Decided to pack up and come home a day early. Weather today not so good, and forecasted to be worse tomorrow. After visiting friends in Provincetown, I headed for home…white knuckle for the last 2 hours of the trip. Got home around 5:30 in the pouring rain, but happy as all get out to be here…safe and sound…well sound of body anyway! ☺

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Before and After (flooding) on the Canal Bike Path

As I started on the canal path this morning I was taken by the water looking cleaner. It’s still dirty, but compared to August 31st it’s clean.

In these pictures you can see how much the canal water has receded…in spite of the deluge we received from Tropical Storm Lee...the bottom picture shows the brown foliage left from receding water.

This picture shows a substantial sand bar being created in the middle of the neglected canal. It doubled in size with the run-off of Hurricane Irene and TS Lee. If something isn’t done, the canal will be dammed up. Maybe that’s what Ahlstrom (sp) is waiting for. Ahlstrom is the company that bought Dexter Paper Co. The Dexter family owned the canal and every year they would drain it, make repairs and dredge if necessary. Ahlstrom refuses to do it and refuses to allow anyone else do it. Since the canal is on the National Historic Register, this is pretty sad.

One of my favorite spots along the path is where the water flows under the railroad bridge…especially when the water is high and swift. The top picture is from Aug. 31. The bottom two taken today.

The river giveth…look at all the junk left at the base of the canal wall. The top picture shows what it looked like flooded.

And the river taketh away…there used to be a pile of trees and other river debris piled on the right...toward the open river. This flood took it all away.

I call this picture Reflections. It shows the trees, a beautiful cloud, and the sun reflected in Stony Brook where it flows beneath the canal to the Connecticut River.

Another Storm…More Flooding

After the clean up following Irene I called the condo management people and asked for help in preventing the window well flooding. They said someone would be over to caulk the window AND the well.

Well.

I popped out of bed this morning at 5:30 (having been awakened by something) and ran down to the basement just in time to see the first trickle of water come over the window sill. I stuffed towels everywhere I could and ran upstairs to gather umbrella, rain jacket, flashlight, shovel and small pan…and out I went in the torrential downpour wearing my nightgown and thin summer bathrobe.

I bailed and bailed until I almost reached bottom. In the meantime, I was able to figure out why my window well floods. As water pours off the entryway roof (no gutter) it digs a channel in the soil. This is, in essence, a long narrow pond that empties right into the window well. AH HA!

That’s where the shovel came in. After getting out of my soaked clothes, I put on my bathing suit and boots so I could dig a ditch out to the sidewalk. It is obvious the lay of the land is all wrong! It dips in the wrong direction. (Can’t you just see this crazy lady out in the dark and pouring rain in a bathing suit and boots wielding a shovel and bailing pan?)

You can’t tell me the young couple who lived here before me didn’t have the same problem. Because the basement was not finished at that time, I guess they didn’t care and just let it flood. There were a lot of things they apparently let go…I would love to see their new house.

Another call to condo management and I told them I want someone out here TODAY! Actually they have been very nice and understanding. I expect a crew here sometime this morning and I’ll show them the problem and let them solve it. Actually I have already solved it, but they need to re-dig my ditch and caulk the well and window.

Then I’m going to take them around out back and show them the standing water there. My neighbor has at least 3” of water at her back door…always…whenever it rains.

I don’t want to be on vacation in a couple of weeks and have to worry about my basement flooding.

My problem is minuscule compared to what others are going through…but to me it’s huge.