Finally a Moment with Nature

Spring has been a long time coming this year. If it wasn’t snowing it was raining but finally on Monday, we had a brief respite.

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As usual lately my days off are filled with errands. When did that happen? I needed to run to the grocery store, down to Walmat (which is the opposite side of town) and then in another direction to the pet store for filters for the pet fountain but I was determined to get some time with the camera. No cat picture today!

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The sun was hiding behind a gray, overcast sky. Rain was predicted for the evening. My first stop was at Oliver Mills. It was crowded today. The herring have started running. You could stand by the fish ladder and see the little fish trying to make their way upstream.  A few gulls braved the influx of humans but no Great Blue Herons. I watched from the car for a bit so when the gulls took flight,  so did I.

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I drove to Plymouth to check on a Osprey nest I found at the end of the season last year. When I got there I discovered that I couldn’t find my binoculars. The last time I had them (that I remember) was in Alaska. This nest is near a park and it was full today too so I didn’t linger there.

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Getting to the Grist Mill Pond was a challenge. The main road was blocked for a funeral so I tackled the shore road down past the Mayflower.

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That’s undergoing road work but passable. I skipped Brewster Gardens. Nothing appeared to be out and about, not even a duck or robin. But that wasn’t the case at the pond.

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Here spring was in full swing with lots of courtship rituals going on…mallards, Canada geese, and Mr. Majestic, the mute swan.

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After enjoying the antics here I made one more stop. I went searching for the “haul out” that I’d heard about for the seals. Usually I go to Chatham to view seals. Plymouth is closer but the seals aren’t necessarily any more accessible. I wasn’t sure I’d found them. Without binoculars I simple took pictures and crossed my fingers.

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Once home I uploaded the images and sure enough…they were there. Next time I’m taking the BIG lens.

 

 

Maryland and Massachusestts

Maryland is the 2nd “M” state and Massachusetts is the 3rd.

Let’s start with Maryland first.

No… Not really. Maryland is part of what I think of as the political area…It’s close to Washington DC and  Annapolis is in Maryland and I can remember going to the Naval Academy with my family  to visit my brother.

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That’s what I remember the most, that and how impressive it was to see all of the young cadets marching past. I can’t even begin to put into words what I was feeling but I can remember it to this day and it was about 40 years ago, maybe 42. I really don’t remember much else about the visit except seeing my brother and being so proud of him. It was a very emotional visit. So I suppose I could cross it off but I think it needs another visit to be official. 🙂

M is for Massachusetts

Yes..I better say yes. I’ve been living here since 1974. Hard to believe it. I originally came out for company training for 6 months. Once the training ended the only openeing was right here in Malden, MA so I stayed.

Massachusetts has everything you could want; mountains,  ocean, cities, rural area, summer sun and winter snow.

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We’ve got National Parks and history. My word, we have history galore from Minuteman National Park with it’s Patriots Day Reenactments to   Boston’s Freedom Trail. There’s Salem, MA of the historic witch trials, Old Ironsides, Bunker Hill, Faneuil Hall.

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As if that wasn’t enough we have nature! We have Whale Watches and Deep Sea Fishing, we’ve got seals  and zoos and aquariums.

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Whale Watchin 119 copy And we’ve got Old Cape Cod with a scenic train and the National Sea Shore and the annual scallop festival. We can even boast great white sharks now!

And we have Lighthouses.

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Maine does not have a monopoly there! I believe there are 63 in all.

Annisquam Baker’s Island Bass River (West Dennis)
Bird Island Bishop and Clerks Borden Flats
Boston Harbor Brant Point Brant Point (Old)
Butler Flats Cape Ann (Thacher Island) Cape Cod (Highland)
Cape Poge Chatham Clark’s Point
Cleveland Ledge Cuttyhunk Deer Island
Derby Wharf Dog Bar Breakwater Duxbury Pier
East Chop Eastern Point Edgartown Harbor
Fort Pickering (Winter Island) Gay Head Graves
Great Point Hospital Point Range Front Hospital Point Range Rear
Hyannis Lightship Nantucket I WLV-612 Lightship Nantucket II WLV 613
Lightship Nantucket LV 112/WAL 534 Lightship New Bedford LV 114/WAL 536 Long Island Head
Long Point Marblehead Mayo’s Beach
Minot’s Ledge Monomoy Point Nantucket Cliff Range
Nauset Ned’s Point Newburyport Harbor (Plum Island)
Newburyport Harbor Range Front Newburyport Harbor Range Rear Nobska Point
Palmer Island Plymouth (Gurnet) Point Gammon
Race Point Sandy Neck Sankaty Head
Scituate Stage Harbor Straitsmouth Island
Tarpaulin Cove Ten Pound Island Three Sisters
West Chop Wings Neck Wood End

Head west on RT 90, from Boston and you’ll find Springfield, home to Dr. Seuss and The “Big E” (Eastern States exposition) and the Basket Ball Hall of Fame.

Speaking of sports, Massachusetts is a pro sports kind of place. We have the Boston Bruins, The Red Sox, Fenway Park and Red Sox Nation. Out in Foxboro we have the New England Patriots and we’ve got the Revolution..not the 1776 revolution but the pro soccer team.

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We host golf tournaments like the Deutsche Bank PGA tournament.

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Heading back to Western Massachusetts Rt 90 rises upward to the Berkshire Mountains. The Appalachia Trail winds it’s way through here and we have Tanglewood and Jacobs Pillow  for culture.

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There’s still more. Massachusetts loves politics. You can find a political discussion almost anywhere and everyone has an opinion. 🙂 And we have higher education, Colleges and Universities abound.

Harvard Yard

Harvard Yard

There are too many to list.

Don’t get me wrong, Massachusetts is not all peaches and cream. After all, we had the “Big Dig” too and are still dealing with the consequences.

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Talk about a major screw up! Traffic is worse now than ever. And we’re starting to head back to the bad old days of “Taxachusetts”…just when we thought it was safe to take our hands out of our pockets good old Governor Deval Patrick put his hands right in!

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But even with all that I still am pretty pleased with my adopted state. It’s a great place to visit and not too bad a place to live.

M is for…

Wow, Did you realize there are 8 states that start with the letter M? I am not going to do all 8 in one post, especially since a couple of them are going to be crossed off as visited.  So before I start can you name all 8 states?

Alphabetically Maine is first. So while you’re thinking about the other 7 states I’ll tell you a little bit about my neighbor to the north. I fell in love with Maine last year when I had the chance to take 2 “mini” vacations.

Maine

YES.

First thing that come to mind when I think of Maine is the gorgeous, rugged coastline. And if you have a rugged coast you need lighthouses.  More than 60 lighthouses dot the Maine coast from the well known Nubble Light in York  to West Quoddy Head, the easternmost lighthouse in the United States. I’ve seen and photographed a bunch of them, Nubble, Spring Ledge, Portland Head, Pemaquid and more but I’m a long way from all 60!+

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Maine is for “Lobsta” or lobster if you want to be accurate. Everyone’s either heard of or eaten Maine Lobster, those feisty crustaceans that are so good boiled, fried, rolled, baked, in salad, well just about any way you want  to eat them. Did you know that lobster were once so plentiful that they were used as fertilizer! Native Americans used them as bait to catch more appealing fish. They were considered poverty  food and fed to servants and prisoners.  You’ve come a long way , baby!

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Maine is for wildlife.

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I saw a big bull moose there while walking a nature trail.

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I braved the sea to get a glimpse of puffins, crazy little clowns. I never realized how tiny they are until I saw them riding those crashing waves.

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Maine has the first National Park east of the Mississippi,  Acadia National Park. The park includes Mount Desert Island and Cadillac Mountain.

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I still want to try a train ride from Boston to Portland. It’s called the “Downeaster”. It can be done in 1 day but it might be nicer to stay over in Portland a night to see a bit more.

By the way, I wrote a lot of posts on Maine last year. Here’s a link to just one of the many :https://aroundustyroads.com/2012/08/29/day-is-done-gone-the-sun/

A Seal Of Approval

Great White Sharks are prowling the shores of Cape Cod once again as the seal population continues to explode. If there was any doubt that the great predators are here to stay it was dispelled when the discovery channel aired Shark Week and the Great Whites of Cape Cod were prominently featured.

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I would still like to see a Great White Shark but I would hate to have to go to South Africa to see “air jaws” when we have our own crop of “Jaws” right here at home. At first they were just hanging out in Chatham eating the  seals of Monemoy Island but now it appears that they are spreading northward toward Orleans and Truro.

So on a sunny day last week I headed to Chatham to see for myself. My last visit to the seals on Monemoy was back in 2010.

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A lot of changes can happen in 3 years. The first change was that the little shuttle isn’t running. I’m still researching ways to get to the island but in the meantime I called the Beachcomber Seal Tours and made a reservation for an afternoon trip.

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The tour didn’t leave from the Fish Pier this time. They said that parking had become impossible there so they had us go to their marine showroom and then shuttled us to the boat in a green trolley.

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We had a full boat for the afternoon trip. The boats stay in the harbor so are pretty small, certainly nothing like the whale watching boats. As we loaded a seal popped it’s head up right by the dock.

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Even though we could say we’d seen a seal, that wasn’t part of the tour. We actually had a bit of a ride to get to the harbor near the seals. As we approached North Beach we saw the first of the seals.

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The tide can swing up to 9 ft. here between high and low tide. The tide was still low so the sand bars were just below the surface and the seals were sitting in the water on these submerged sand bars.

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Oh what a racket they were making.

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They weren’t concerned about the boat in their midst at all. We moved on past Lighthouse beach to another seal colony.

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Eventually we reached the fish pier  where we passed Chatham’s pirate ship before turning for home.

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The whole tour was maybe 1.5 hours. There weren’t any Great Whites but we sure did see seals.

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