TRIP #5, 2014--Progress to Provincetown

Progress to Provincetown
Andy looked for North Pamet Road.
"What happened to my shopping trip?" I teased.
"Oh, we'll do some shopping, but it's so nice out.  We have blue sky!" He was right.  The rumbles of thunder at 7:15 a.m. were gone, and the huge black clouds had blown out.  "This is the cold front coming in," he said, "so it's going to be nice after all."
"You did that on purpose," I joked.
"What? Control the weather?" he asked innocently.

Bearberry Hill East Summit overlooks
the Atlantic Ocean.

"No, get me all excited about a day of rainy shopping and then keep me hiking trails again because the sun is out!"
He just laughed.  It really was a glorious day to be outside.
Our first hike, about 2.5 miles in total, was off of North Pamet Road.  The trail started across from a school house and climbed Bearberry Hill.  The East Summit gave us beautiful views of the ocean.
Henry David Thoreau walked these heights and beaches in the mid-1800's.  He wrote, "The sea... plays with land holding a sand bar in its mouth awhile before it swallows it, as a cat plays with a mouse..."  A couple huge rambling homes looked too close to the edge for comfort, knowing the Atlantic claims an average of three feet a year on this side of the Cape.
From the West Summit we faced an inland bog, the site of the 13-acre Pamet Cranberry Company from 1892 to 1949.  The Bog Trail descended the slope and passed through stunted bear oaks and low-growing pitch pines.  All the way down we went and then back up.  "I think we should have taken that other turn at the bottom," said Andy.  So we headed back down for the right fork.  It dead ended at private property a few hundred yards later.  Andy stacked some dead branches across the "wrong" trail so others wouldn't make our mistake.  There were no signs.

Bog House has two doors that can't be reached and no doors
that can be reached... an interesting conundrum.

"I've got your number," I told Andy, as we retraced our steps and trudged all the way back up the hill.
"Yeah," he agreed.  "It DOES seem like we came up this hill before.  You get credit for double."
"What does THAT mean?" I asked.  I DID double!"
A little beyond where we had walked the first time, we found Bog House.  "I think this house has been raised," said Andy.
Something was fishy.  Both front and side entry doors were on the second floor.  There were no stairs.  By the mid-1800's Cape Cod's fishing industry was in decline.  A lucrative alternative was a new industry cultivating cranberries as a cash crop.  Commercial bogs were carved from Cape Cod wetlands.  The business was helped by falling sugar prices.  Today the small bogs are disappearing. The house was at the heart of one of those "small" businesses.
By 11:00 a.m., temperatures had warmed well into the 60's, and all but a few puffy clouds on the horizon were gone.  The weather could not have been more perfect.  We parked at Woods Walk, but the trail along an old asphalt road was poorly marked.  By scouting around we realized it wasn't illegal to enter the old North Truro Air Force Station.  It had been built in response to the Soviet's first atomic bomb test in 1949 and was in service from 1950 to 1985.
The site right on the oceanfront was the former home of one of the country's first radar squadrons.  Squadron members played a crucial role in Cold War air defenses, keeping a constant watch for Soviet bombers and missiles.

North Truro Air Force
Station decays in silence.
 

Three "Texas Towers" out on the Continental Shelf in the Atlantic worked with the North Truro Station to give the nation an extra 30 minutes of warning in case of atomic attack on this coast.  But work on the towers was dangerous.  Thirty-two men died in the years the towers were in operation.  When the middle tower was being dismantled after 1985, it collapsed and sank into the ocean.
Most of the buildings on the base are boarded up and in serious disrepair.  The houses of officers that line part of Woods Walk are probably beyond repair altogether.  Only a large radar installation, not open to visitors, operates near the shore.  The facility belongs to the Federal Aviation Administration to monitor air traffic.  Andy said he was pretty sure it was primarily connected with Logan Airport in Boston.  That makes sense.
As we walked around the empty base, the last of the clouds blew out and the air warmed.  We didn't need jackets.

Swallows flock and swarm before heading south from
Highland Lighthouse on Cape Cod.

At Highland Light, sometimes called Cape Cod Light, the swallows were flocking.  We watched thousands of the small black and white birds swoop in a black cloud and then soar high over the scrub oak and pitch pine trees near the cliff side.  Other visitors stopped to watch the graceful dance, a spectacle of beauty against the deep blue overhead.

Relocated far back from the cliff face, Highland Light
protects ships from the steep edges of mid-Cape.

A rock near the cliff said, "This marks the site where the tower of the Cape Cod Highland Lighthouse stood from 1857 until 1996."  The current lighthouse has been moved far back.  The interpretive sign explained the relocation.  It said, "These tall cliffs seemed like solid ground when President George Washington authorized construction of Cape Cod's first lighthouse in 1797.  But over the years the waves of powerful winter storms have battered the base of this cliff.  From time to time the upper part of the cliff falls in large chunks to the beach below.  Of the ten acres bought to build the 1797 lighthouse, fewer than four acres remain."
"These are loop trails," promised Andy, when we pulled in the Pilgrim Springs parking lot.
The Small's Swamp Trail, about a mile loop, led to a kettle where Thomas Small built the house, out-buildings and 200-acre farm in the 1860's. Cape Cod was already barren by the 1850's, since the general needs of the settlement had already depleted the soil, but Small selected the kettle for its protection from the wind, just as the Wampanoag Indians did.

From the Pilgrim Springs Trail, the colors
of autumn dominate the landscape.

A kettle is actually a depression caused when a block of ice breaks off from a retreating glacier.  The entire arm of Cape Cod from Orleans to Truro was built as the retreating glacier dumped great loads of sand and gravel, boulders and rock powder in the muddy meltwater about 15,000 years ago.
For 60 years Thomas and his son Warren farmed the sandy soil here.  When Warren died in 1922, the farm was abandoned. The only evidence now is an apple tree or two and grape vines that blend with the returning woods.
The pamphlet explained that Native American presence here dates back 7,000 years.  First, the indigenous people were hunters, gatherers and fishers.  Later they planted maize, pumpkins, beans and squash,  all "female" plants grown only by the women; men tended tobacco, "male" crops grown only in secret areas known only to the men.
By 1615, when Europeans arrived, there were 67 tribes of the Wampanoag Nation throughout southern New England and the eastern part of Rhode Island.  But many thousands of them perished from disease brought by the Europeans.
The main sign said the Pilgrim Springs Trail was .3 mile.  It seemed a lot farther than that.  It was Andy who made that comment, so I knew I wasn't just imagining the fallacy of distance on the sign.

Pilgrim Monument memorializes those
who first landed here before establishing
the Plymouth Colony in the New World.

But we DID find the spring.  It was a two-foot wide circular depression, surrounded by very green, thick grass.  An engraved rock and plaque marked the site.  In spelling from the 1600's, it explained that on November 16, 1620, an exploring party had entered a deep valley with long grass about 10:00 o'clock in the morning. They found "little paths or tracks," saw a deer and found springs of fresh water.  "We were heartily glad and sat us downe and dranke our first New England water."

On this beautiful fall day, the wharves of
Provincetown Harbor attract tourists.

Provincetown hasn't changed much.  If anything, it has been spruced up with two new wharves.  It is still the quaint, lovely town of narrow streets and interesting shops that I remember from years ago.  We parked on the main street, a few blocks outside the town center, and walked down and back, browsing in several little stores and looking at the paintings in several of the many art galleries.  There were only a couple of the ticky-tacky tourist shops.  At the far end of the main wharf we watched a seagull settle in for a nap on the horn of a yacht.  It was fun to see the lobster boats close up.  Andy found another lobster pod washed up at the base of one dock.  That gives us four.  He'll have fun redecorating them and stringing them for display at home.

Provincetown charms visitors with art galleries and quaint shops.

Back on the main street in town, we bought coffee and sat on a park bench in the sun, sipping the brew and watching tourists stroll by.  It was too warm for jackets, and Andy was comfortable in short sleeves.  As I finished my coffee, he untangled a string of "Mardi Gras" beads from a tree branch overhead.  A few people watched as he stood on tiptoes and pulled the branch down gently to reach the mess.  "These are especially for you," he grinned, putting the beads over my head.  "Please notice, I spare no cost for my honey!"
"Mardi Gras beads!  Thanks!" I told him.
What effort, but they didn't match my outfit!
"Probably more like Gay Pride," he grinned, "but my main interest was to help the tree!"

Part of Beech Forest Trail
skirts a gigantic sand dune.

Our final excursion of the day was Beech Forest Trail, a one-mile loop around two kettles and over the top of a gigantic sand dune. With the setting sun, the fall colors were magnified and reflected on the fresh water pond of the kettle.  We trudged up the sand, sinking backwards with every step, but from the very top we could see the Pilgrim Monument in the distance.

Covered with lily pads, the kettle of Beech Forest Trail
captures and reflects the setting sun.

We were on top of the world--sun warming our backs and stiff ocean breeze blowing through our hair.  Life was good!
We returned to Guapo's Tortilla Shack in Orleans, Massachusetts for dinner a second night.  That would never happen if we hadn't thoroughly enjoyed the food and the atmosphere the first time, especially with so many options available and constant awareness of the cost factor.  But this place was pure fun.  Served in the bar by Steve and Katie, we already feel like locals.  At Guapo's, we belong!