More Fourth Cliff

          It has been an interesting few days on this quaint little fishhook of a peninsula.  First of all, it has been as relaxing as it possibly could be…and we needed that.  I make morning runs in the Jeep to pick up a copy of the Boston Globe.  Durelle, on the other hand, has been happily sitting here from midday Sunday to midday Thursday.  At least two days of that was spent watching the whales.  We are about a hundred feet away from the shoreline both horizontally and vertically, so we have a very good vantage point.  She does a lot of dog walking in the immediate area, but it has been a long time since she has spent five days in a quarter mile radius.  Hell, that’s just a good par five.

     The whales are right whales and are distinguished by their double spray when they vent.  They are endangered.  They have a huge forehead which is filled with whale oil which earned them the name the “right” whale.  There have been up to four of them for two days.  At times they were right in front of our site and only a hundred yards off shore.  After a while a local boater went out to take a closer look.  A fellow camper called the Coast Guard who came and shooed the boaters away.  The best views were in the morning, but we are looking east into a ferocious sun.  The Leica is not fond of that.

     

    

     

     The other noteworthy aspect of this spit of land is that it is recovering from the frequently vicious storms of last winter.  After all the years, much of the sand is gone and stones, from pebbles to medicine ball sized rocks, were washed and blown across the spit to the western side.  Along the way they battered pilings and removed stairways.  All along the road I take to get the paper in the morning there are crews making repairs of various degrees of severity to the piling supported houses facing the Atlantic.

     Today we had lunch with Bill and Diane Russell.  It is the sixth time we have crossed paths, but it is the first time that it was intentional.  We have met at Red Bay, Alabama, a campground in Georgia, at a rest area in Maine, a Tiffin Rally in Massachusetts, and once before here at Fourth Cliff.  Today we found a burger place in Marshfield called KKaties Burgers that sufficed nicely. 

     All of this variety and camaraderie are the essence of the RV lifestyle. 

Whale Watch

     Our location is on a bluff with an 180 degree view of a horizon that is defined by a line between the sky and the Atlantic Ocean.  This afternoon a solo whale wandered around in our front yard,  He/she spent most of her time on the surface, but without any breeches or other demonstrations.  The following pictures were taken through a dirty windshield, so cut me a little slack.

      There's another shot of the bus and the bunker that captures the essence of the place,

   
Today was a wonderful, do-nothing day...slept in...pleasant shower and shave...gentle walk with Baxter around the perimeter.  Had a nice breakfast of one slice of sausage, homemade hashbrowns with onion and one egg.  I read, and cleaned up the email system while Durelle did some cross stitch.  I think we are getting back to normal.

Fourth Cliff 2015

     Fourth Cliff is a 56 acre recreation area administered by Hanscom AFB.  It's a wonderful spot with tall bluffs with clear day views of both Boston and Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod.  Erosion of the bluffs was pretty severe last winter, and there is a new fence about 12 feet back from the old one.

     The old concrete slab that you see was previously used to mount six inch guns used for the defense of the Boston Harbor in WWII.

     The grown over mound with a visible blast door behind the bus was the camouflaged bunker that housed troops, supplies and ammunition.  Note that I had to pull exaggeratedly close to the front of the site to get my rear wheels up high enough that the leveling system could handle it.

     The old reinforced concrete observation tower still stands.  The first federal use of the property was in 1880 when it became a life-saving station.  After WWI it became a Navy radio-navigation station.  During WWII it was a potent Coast Artillery site.  It became an Air Force Field Station in 1948.  At that point it became an antenna range for the noteworthy MIT/Harvard Radiation Laboratory (the famous "Rad Lab").  Shortly thereafter it sprouted the huge ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) test antennas which verified the capability to have limited communications with submerged submarines a half a world away.

     In recent years the historic little hilltop has hosted many thousands of military families as a vacation site and recreation area.  We'll be here until the 15th.  I haven't gotten up early enough to capture a sunrise, but looking shore ward there are some nice sunsets.

55th West Point Reunion

   From Thursday to Sunday we have been dry camping in the parking lot of the Sheraton/Mahwah, NJ.  It's a big complex mix of commercial offices on floors 2-12 and hotel accommodations above that.  It was chosen for it's proximity to West Point and it's being adjacent to I-287.

     We checked in and confirmed our parking permission with the hotel.  

     Then we found a quiet place to park.  We would be making extensive use of the generator, and this was a perfect spot.  It did mean a half mile walk to the hotel, but we managed with some discomfort.  Friday morning was a bus trip to West Point for facility tours, lunch at Ike Hall and briefings from the Supe, the Comm, the Dean, and the AD.  One of the new facilities is the USMA Prep School.

Then there were some more self-guided tours. 

     The statue is Eisenhower with the Supe's house in the background.

      Here we see the three couples from H-2 and one of the widows who was able to attend.

Friday night was the dinner dance.  Company H-2 did not have enough folks to occupy a whole table, but we did bring our own tablecloth.  The back story behind the tablecloth is worth the telling.  On Valentine's day of 1960 there was a special dinner at the Bergman's.  He was an eye sugeon whose daughter, Jitske, was engaged to one of the H-2 cadets.  The table was set for a dozen: candelabra, linen tablecloth, silver, wine, etc.  Somehow, a bottle of wine was spilled.  Jitske and her mother agreed to write off the tablecloth.  Everyone present autographed the tablecloth.  In subsequent reunions the tablecloth collected more and more signatures.  Jitske embroidered the signatures, so that they wouldn't be lost with fading.  Over the years, many H-2 signatures appeared.  Durelle cross-stitched over many of them.  Now the tablecloth is a wonderful source of many memories.

         The "graffiti" and wine stains are original.  There was no more wine spilled on it this year.  You get less rambunctious as you approach our ages.  By the way, the DJ announced that the first dance was reserved for those who had been married more than fifty years.  The dance floor couldn't  hold them all!

         Saturday was the Alumni Review.  After painful review, I decided to join  the "walking wounded" and join the class after they had marched on.  The next two pictures are courtesy of John and Jackie Fare, Maine camping buddies with whom we shared the day.

     That's me headin' out.  I found a spot in the rear rank and observed what my legs thought was an interminable parade.  Below is a picture of the class of '60 in the bleachers.  The collective contributions of that group are hard to measure.

     After the parade was lunch in the cadet dining hall.  The Fare's live just north of West Point, so we invited them to join us for the parade and lunch in Washington Hall.  Jackie's gift made Durelle's birthday.

    

     Above is a small section of the 120 foot wide mural at one end of the dining hall.  Later there was a memorial service for our fallen classmates in the cadet chapel.

     

     It was a grueling weekend for those not well equipped for walking, but we are already talking about our 60th.

Finally Northbound

     Well, we got away on schedule...almost.

     Here's the bus all hooked up and ready to roll.  As you can imagine, it takes the cooperation of our neighbors and the Homeowners Association.  Northbound on I-95 is something we have done innumerable times before.  This time our first day had a very pleasant diversion from the usual interstate/cruise control day.
     Over the past several months I have been working with a widow (whom I had never met) of a classmate to jointly create a Memorial Article for her husband to be published in the upcoming issue of Taps.  There were innumerable back and forths until we decided we were both happy with the write up, and it was time to go to press.  She lives in Fayetteville, so we agreed to meet for lunch at the local Cracker Barrel.  Of course, it was a two hour lunch that really wasn't long enough.  We'll have to get together again... perhaps southbound in the Fall.  The lady's name is Lyn Whitehead.  Here's a picture.

     We stopped for the night at a convenient KOA in Enfield, NC.  I sat down to hook up the computer for the first time on the road this year.  I thought that I had organized all the cords and non-cords to resume normal operation.  Everything seemed to work except the mouse.  Having discovered from son, Mark, that only one dongle supported both the wireless keyboard and wireless mouse, the next possibility was mouse batteries.  Given the complete new organization, coupled with the fact that the mouse worked fine yesterday, batteries seemed an unlikely solution.  Guess what?  It was the batteries.  So you get to see a blog tonight after all.  
     If my count is correct, this is blog number 600.  I hope you have enjoyed them as much as I have.

Big Cat

     Well, we're getting ready to head north.  The dining room table is covered with "stuff" that we have to find room for somewhere.  Tomorrow we go grocery shopping.  The loading begins.  I went over to check on the bus today, and hooked up the Jeep in order to fix the trailer lighting connections.  The new inverter is working just fine.  It ought to for $2.9K!  We'll pick the bus up Friday and park it in the driveway to begin loading.  This week has been a long list of doctor's appointments as we juggle our travel with the "two per year" routine visit limit  While I have been looking forward to the trip to have some blog material, this evening some blog material wandered into the back yard.

     This is NOT one of the neighbor's house cats.  I never saw one of the frequently-spotted cougars when we were in Colorado, but I have seen a Canadian lynx in the wild while fly fishing with my father between the 1st and 2nd Connecticut Lakes.  I'm 99% sure this is a bobcat.

     Durelle spotted him, and I grabbed the camera.  Neither of us have eyes good enough to make a real determination unaided.  My only hope was that the telephoto and the computer enhancement would permit a good identification.  I think you'll agree that this is not somebody's pet.  He surely saw me come out, but he did not spook and head into the bushes.  AND he looks pretty well fed.

     There is nothing for scale, but I feel sure that he is a foot and a half high.  He(?) is a handsome thing without an apparent enemy in the world.

     We are fortunate to have an assortment of critters in our back yard.  Here's one more picture to prove the point.

     Soon this will once more be a travel blog.

Alligator Fence

     Signs of Spring.  The alligators are coming out, it's Easter and Durelle has started packing by loading up the dining room table.  As you know the Pecks are enjoying the use of our bus until next Sunday when they'll have to haul their well-warmed bones back up to Maine.  So that they would not go to Subway for Easter, we asked them to join us.

     It was a  simple dinner of a ham off the Treager grill, Durelle's mother's potato salad, and a butternut squash.  We'll be eating ham for a while.
     There are a lot of "critters in our backyard, but when the weather warms up you can count on the alligators showing up.  The first picture was taken before I could get to the fence to take his picture. 

     This is why we have a fenced in backyard for Baxter.  As I approached the fence he scrambled into the water.  He came back out of the water a few minutes later, and Durelle was able to take another picture over the fence.

     He's not a huge fellow, but he is about eight feet long.

     In a couple of weeks or so we'll be pulling up stakes and heading north.  Therefore the beginning of the collection of "stuff" to be loaded into the bus is starting to materialize on the dining room table.  I sure hope that it is also warming up in Maine.