Massachusetts - Crane Beach

Wanting a place to hike with no snow or mud, we chose to go to Crane Beach in Ipswich MA.

Twenty-two years ago we walked this beach on a windy day in April.

Barbara April 1993

Barbara April 2015

Not as windy this time.

We ate our lunch on the boardwalk.

We've gone to Crane Beach many times, but were interested to learn about the adjacent land managed by the same land conservation group.  Here is a little video about the Crane Estate at Castle Hill: Crane Estate video.

The thing that probably surprised us the most was how Richard T Crane Jr built an Italian Renaissance-style villa, but his wife didn't like it.  He told her to give it ten years and if she still didn't like it he'd tear it down and build a different mansion.  And that's what happened.

Connecticut - Logee's Greenhouse

Last week Barbara and her friends letterboxed at a greenhouse in Danielson, Connecticut – an unassuming place at first glance called Logee's.

[Image from the web. There was a little less snow when we visited.]

It's the type of place you might just drive by without giving it much notice.  In fact, the town we live in has a number of greenhouses and used to be known as one of the largest carnation-growing towns.  So we are used to driving by greenhouses or just making a quick stop for garden supplies, but this greenhouse is more than a garden shop.  It is what they call "a destination greenhouse."

The clues to the letterboxes take you on a tour of the facility with an opportunity to learn about some plants along the way.  Gardenias, Jasmines, Bougainvilleas… and so much more.  Common plants and some very unusual plants.  Interesting herbs and beautiful fragrant flowers.  This particular greenhouse is known for its tropical potted plants.  Here is a Bird-of-Paradise.

They have a Lemon Tree over 100 years old that still bears fruit and a Washington Navel Tree that actually bears 10 different types of fruit.  Imagine having one tree where you can pick grapefruit, oranges, kumquats, tangerines, and limes from the same tree!

The letterboxes were fun, too.  We were sorry the one in the "hobbit hole" was missing, but liked the display.

All in all, it was a fun outing and an interesting place to explore.

Cape Cod MA – "From Sea to Shining Sea"

Excited to have a 50-degree day in December, we headed to the Cape to explore the area.

We found a letterbox at a nice little park overlooking the Cape Cod Canal.  Then we went to Buzzards Bay Recreation Area where we saw the Cape Cod Canal railroad bridge

and Bill began the 7-mile bike ride along the mainland side of the Cape Cod Canal Bikeway.

If you look carefully at the picture above you can see Bill in neon green heading to the canal bikeway. Here is a sign that shows the bike paths.

He biked under the two bridges to Cape Cod and then we met at Scusset Beach State Reservation.

 

We actually took a similar picture at the Pacific.

We then headed to Falmouth where Bill bicycled the Shining Sea Bikeway from North Falmouth to Woods Hole and then back to meet Barbara for a total of about 13 miles.  The bikeway goes past cranberry bogs

and the ocean.

 

Barbara found a few letterboxes: one near the grave of Katherine Lee Bates, author of America the Beautiful.  The Shining Sea Bikeway got its name from a line from America the Beautiful.  Given our cross country travels, we love that line "from sea to shining sea."

Bill also hiked to the Punch Bowl, a pretty pond in Beebe Woods. This land and other tracts are owned by the 300 Committee, a Falmouth land trust founded in 1986 on the 300th anniversary of the Town of Falmouth. 

2014 Year in Review

As many of you know... after much research and planning we ordered a 19' Escape Travel Trailer made in British Columbia, drove across the country to pick it up, and then spent two months traveling in the Pacific Northwest.  Our previous blog post sums up the trip and the June - August posts chronicle our daily activities. We thoroughly enjoyed the adventure!

Bill & Barbara (1) Olympic National Park (2) Washington Pass (3) our trailer in Ohio

Earlier in the year we saw the Biltmore Estate in Asheville NC en route to Barbara's parents' place in Florida.  We saw a few other relatives on that trip.

Kate lives in a house in Lexington MA with some other young women.  She perfected her coffee barista skills at several coffee shops, but then grabbed an opportunity to serve at a restaurant in a newly opened inn.  Check out innathastingspark.com to see where she currently works; it's part of an elite group of inns. She's also studying business part-time at Northeastern University and attends the young adults group at church.

Kate (1) dog-sitting with Maggie (2) with Carrie (3) coffee barista

Carrie's on her second year at Boston College.  Her Presidential Scholar Program included a spring break trip to Italy, a summer program on social justice in Boston, and an upcoming Christmas break trip to Nicaragua.  On top of that she spent the rest of the summer working with a microfinance organization in Uganda.  Among other projects, she created a video highlighting a Ugandan loan recipient.  She is now interning this academic year with a non-profit called Accion which gives small business loans.

Carrie (1) Bologna, Italy (2) Arua, Uganda (3) Gloucester, MA

Bill delved into many projects including three weeks in Ohio helping his parents after his mom's ankle surgery.  We also spent some time in Florida with Barbara's parents.  After over 4 years, Barbara transitioned out of her role as Teaching Director of the North Shore class of Community Bible Study this November.  Barbara so appreciated her time serving in that role and will miss it greatly, but looks forward to the next chapter.

Speaking of the next chapter, with us both in retirement mode – we plan to move in 2015, but have yet to work on getting the house ready to sell and narrowing down where to move.  Stay tuned to see where we end up next and what the next trip will be.

Pacific Northwest Trip Summary

We've been home over 3 months, but are now writing a final trip summary. Here are all the states and provinces that we drove through or visited:

Distance traveled: 11,231 miles

Time away: 65 days

Where we slept: 2 nights hotels, 3 nights tent, 1 night yurt, 2 nights 4Runner, and 56 nights trailer.

 

[Click on any picture to enlarge.]

We hiked and hiked and hiked.  Bill liked 10-mile hikes that challenged him, while Barbara felt a gradual 3-mile trail was her limit. We hiked together, but sometimes we’d start out together and then Bill would continue on and occasionally we would go on separate trails. One time Bill hiked up a mountain, while Barbara drove to the top. Another time we hiked together until we saw this sign.

Since the remainder of the “trail” was a jumble of boulders, Barbara turned around, but Bill kept going and was able to reach a glacier-fed lake.

Bill's favorite hike was the Highline Trail at Glacier National Park; Barbara's was Hurricane Hill in Olympic National Park.

We saw lots of cool stuff when we hiked, like snowcapped mountains, beaches, waterfalls, big trees, glaciers, alpine meadows, rainforests, cliffs, sand dunes, and seastacks. Trails took us behind waterfalls, in a cave, and through the devastation caused by the eruption of Mt St Helens. 

And then there were the moments when we spotted something moving and said, "Oh, look!  There's a ______!"

We saw so much wildlife!

Barbara letterboxed some on the trip, adding the pink places to her list of places she found boxes.

 

Her letterboxing highlights included boxing with Judy and finding some very special boxes in Washington.

We drove over beautiful highways like the Sea to Sky Highway in British Columbia, Chuckanut Drive in Washington, Washington Pass in the North Cascades, the Historic Columbia River Highway in Oregon, Going-to-the-Sun Highway in Glacier National Park, and across the vast country. 

Most of our trip focused on natural scenic places. We didn't explore cities much, but explored some beautiful gardens and parks, like the Butchart Gardens near Victoria, British Columbia.  

We enjoyed various tours and ranger-led talks. How cool it was to see Theodore Roosevelt's cabin and then watch the PBS Roosevelt series when we got home. We saw 1^st Order Fresnel Lenses in lighthouses and then saw one close up in a museum when we got home.

All in all it was a wonderful trip and we are thankful for a beautiful country and the opportunity to travel, see sights, and even see a few special people along the way! 

We know a number of you followed us along on our trip as we blogged.  It seemed like our readers were right there with us.

Who's that peeking along with Bill from behind that tree? (Edited by Barbara's dad)

North Dakota to Massachusetts - The Last 2000 Miles

Our original itinerary was a bit aggressive -- driving 2000 miles and visiting 2 relatives in 3.5 days. We are thankful the relatives accommodated our last minute request to move our arrival time, as this allowed us to do it in a more leisurely 4 days.  :-)

We had a delightful visit and delicious meal with Bill’s cousin and his wife in Minnesota. Both were most gracious.

We told Bill’s parents that we’d arrive at their house in Ohio by 6pm for dinner.  We felt great in the morning as our GPS ETA read 5pm.  “Cool!  We’ll be there an hour early.”  Well we hit traffic – bad traffic.  I-74 was shut down in both directions for hours due to a collision involving commercial-grade fireworks that needed a bomb disposal team.  Needless to say we were over an hour late for dinner and we appreciate their holding the meal.  We enjoyed yummy food and got to see Bill’s parents and sister.

Here we are in front of our trailer in Bill’s parents’ driveway.  

We recommend this campsite – very quiet plus it has free wifi.  :-)

Speaking of campsite, our “campsites” for three nights were Walmart parking lots.  They worked out great as we could pull in late and not fuss with finding a site or registering. Plus they didn’t require backing up or leveling, and they were free. Is it a great country or what?

Our own driveway, however, did require backing up and leveling, but we are now home.

North Dakota - Theodore Roosevelt National Park

We left Glacier National Park and cut across Montana on back roads.  There are no short cuts across this big state and gas stations can be more than 100 miles apart.  By the time we arrived at the first-come-first-serve campground at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the rain was torrential.  A sign at the entrance said that the campground had limited space and we saw cars leaving as we drove in – not a good sign. But it was for us, as those were tenters fleeing the deluge and flooded campsites. Since pooled water doesn’t bother a trailer, we ended up with a nice pull-through campsite. The skies cleared by morning and we headed for the visitor center.

On the way, we saw …

Two buffalo, two buffalo, buffalo on the lawn

Just rompin’ all around and stompin’ on the ground

And all of the grass was gone.

Well the grass wasn’t really gone and there were lots of bison, but we did end up singing all the verses of this song that Barbara’s family heard growing up.

One hundred and twenty eight buffalah

Man there’s enough of the

Buffalo on the lawn

Just rompin’ all around and stompin’ on the ground

And all of the grass was gone. *

And we also saw prairie dogs.

There are fields filled with little prairie dog “houses.”  It’s lots of fun to watch them.  We would have liked to see some other wildlife like elk or mule deer, but our one little attempt at a hike was blocked by this guy in the middle of the trail.  

We decided to abort our hike and give him a little space.

The terrain is interesting – Roosevelt said, "I grow very fond of this place, and it certainly has a desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious fascination for me." It resembles the Badlands with its strata of eroded sediment, but it had some green vegetation too.

The park commemorates Theodore Roosevelt’s time here hunting, raising cattle, mourning the death of his wife and mother, and shaping his views on natural resources.  We went on a ranger-led tour of Theodore Roosevelt’s hunting cabin.

After our morning exploring the park, we grabbed lunch and headed east.  2000 miles to go...

* Adapted from TWO BUFFALO by Rolf Harris, which at the time of this post could be found here.