Thursday October 11th 2018

The day stated with clouds and ended with rain. The first burst of rain came down while I was having breakfast. It rained hard for about two minutes then when back to just cloudy. The pattern repeated off and on until around 3PM when the rain came for real.

The hunk of stone honored as the famous Plymouth Rock. It is almost covered by a very high tide.

The early rain spoiled my plan of getting up on the roof to work on the satellite dish, so it was on to plan B. I needed groceries and I wanted to checkout Plymouth Harbor. The harbor area is always an interesting visit. The combination of tourists checking out the historic sites combined with the activity in the harbor makes for a lot of activity.

Gloomy view of Plymouth Harbor.

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Mooring ball being shared by a bird and a boat.

The harbor was a little different today. The overcast and rain made activity on the water slow. I didn’t see any boats in motion. They were all docked or moored in the harbor. The Mayflower II replica of the original transport ship is in Mystic Connecticut getting refurbished for the 400 anniversary of the Pilgrim’s arrival in 2020. The park area in front of the pier is getting a refresh as well. New trees and bushes were getting planted today. The pictures I’m including in this blog entry show how gray the weather made the day. I got a little wet from another quick hit of rain getting back to the car.

An examples of the lobster art statues around town.

Judging by the color this one is already cooked.

I got my surprise for the day at the Walmart in Plymouth. The store doesn’t use plastic bags. It uses paper bags. I recall some discussion on a local ordnance a few years back. It seems to have been approved. The paper bags brought back a lot of memories good and bad. When one of the bags got wet, the really bad memories returned. I caught everything before the contents hit the ground, but it was an interesting juggling match. I know where to recycle the plastic bags, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the paper bags. I’ll go back to the other Walmart in Taunton next time. They still use plastic and seemed to be better stocked.

Another gull declaring itself as king of the world.

Wednesday October 10th 2018

I don’t have a lot to write about tonight. It was a beautiful day with above normal temperatures in the mid eighties. Traffic was a big part of my day again. I managed to get stuck in traffic heading north. One little construction crew in the median of the Interstate had traffic backed up for more than five miles. I guess that proves the roads are very close to capacity.

A different kind of foliage.

The foliage seems to have passed peak in many areas. The leaves are starting to fall from the trees quickly. Rain and wind are in the forecast for the next couple of days, so many more leaves will be on the ground by the weekend. I’ve really enjoyed seeing true multicolored fall foliage after last years yellows in Arizona. Next year I will probably be back on the west coast. Who knows what I’ll see for fall foliage. That’s part of the fun of travel on my Rambling Road Trip.

I bought another cable to fix my satellite dish today. If the rain holds off tomorrow long enough I’ll be back on the roof. It’s hard to tell when the rain is going to start tomorrow. The weather forecast time on the TV is spent talking mostly about the hurricane in the south with only a few words about tomorrows weather in this area. The hurricane went from an area of interest to a hurricane so fast the TV weather talkers are still trying to catch up. As usual I got engrossed in the Weather channel’s coverage of the storm. I don’t want to be in one, but I have an almost morbid fascination with the storm coverage.

More Holy berries.

Tuesday October 9th 2018

The overnight temperature only fell into the low sixties giving the day at good start. Today was a bright sunny day with a high temperature about eighty. The normal high temperature for this time of year is in the sixties.

Conditions were finally right to get up on the roof and work on my satellite antenna. I put all of the tools I might need along with the short cable I bought in a canvas bag and climbed up the ladder on the back of the RV. The ladder isn’t the easiest or most comfortable thing to use. Many people carry folding ladders for better access to the roof, but I can’t afford the storage space. Before I climbed on the roof I powered up the antenna and verified the problem hadn’t miraculously fixed itself. I left the antenna in a vertical service position and powered it down.

Satellite dish in the service position. The cable in question comes up from the base in the square grey metal mast. The view in the trees was nice.

I found a kink in the suspect cable that runs from the base of the antenna to the Low-Noise Block Downconverter (LNB) that receives the signal reflected off the dish. To replace the cable you need to disassemble the LNB from the mast. Once I did that and threaded the new cable into the mast, I discovered the cable I bought was too short. Surprise, the internet lied. I bought a three foot cable based on information I found on the net. At least in my case, I need four feet. I’ll get one of those tomorrow or the next day and go back up and do the install. Once I prove it’s only the cable I can order a new fancy braided cable from Winegard, the manufacturer. If it isn’t the cable, the whole LNB assembly is the next option and that’s very expensive.

My other accomplishment for the day was starting to put some definition into my plans for Florida in February and March. I’m going to see a lot of the state. In the beginning of February I’ll be in the northern part of the state. In the beginning of March I’ll be on the northern edge of the Everglades in South Florida. I’ve made three of the more difficult reservations for durations in the eight to eleven day range. I need to make a couple of calls tomorrow or the next day to lock in the rest of the reservations. Those shouldn’t be a problem because there are alternatives in the area. The good news is out of all of this mess of reservations and Florida travel I get to be in Spring Training land for the third week of March and I’m at Fort Wilderness in Disney for the last week of March. After that I think I’m heading slowly west.

Blossom of the day.

Monday October 8th 2018

Today was a very confusing day. The morning television was the regular weekday morning stuff. The news was talking about rush hour traffic and the political events of the day. Then I opened the blinds to see everybody packing up to depart the campground. It took a moment or two to reset and remember it was a holiday of sorts.

My first task of the day was to get gas in the car. When I arrived back here late yesterday afternoon the low fuel light came on just after I passed the turn for the last gas station. In the seven years I’ve had the vehicle the light has only come on once. Letting it get to the bottom of the tank is not my normal operating mode. The miles to empty was at twelve when I filled the tank. I put more gas in the tank than I thought the tank held, so I must have been drawing on fumes.

After I got gas I continued to drive around the area looking at all of the cranberry bogs. None of the bogs I saw have been flooded for harvest yet, but most of them had a lot of little colored flags marking out edges and lanes. The harvest will be here soon. There are cranberry harvest festivals going on all over the area. One will be held here at the campground next Saturday.

My wandering journey through the cranberry bogs ended back at the Cape Cod Canal. I took another three mile hike along the canal service road. Today the birds and boats were joined by a train to keep me entertained on my walk. All of the pictures that follow were taken under the gloomy overcast sky on my canal side walk.

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Everybody gets their own rock. “You watch that way, I’ll watch this way.”

Time for a swim.

A stately gull.

These two can share a rock.

Biggest boat I saw today. I wonder how many people crew this boat.

A little more sensible sized.

A two mast sailboat.

The race is on between the train and the boat. The train, made up of an engine and a coach, won the race.

The railroad bridge coming down for the train.

The train crossing the bridge.

The blossom of the day.

Sunday October 7th 2018

I was out on the roads with thousands of other people today. Traffic seems to be a part of life in this modern age. Last year when I was out west in the area between the Rockies and the Sierras, heavy traffic was only occasionally an issue. I lost my tolerance for traffic and my willingness to drive in it. When I was in Las Vegas last winter I convinced my self that the traffic was a big city anomaly.

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This year I’ve been reminded that traffic is universal. I’ve encountered heavy traffic in all of the states I traveled. I still wanted to believe that traffic has increased or that I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but now that I’m back in familiar territory I have to acknowledge nothing has changed. The roads in this area have the same level of heavy traffic as I am forced to remember. The amnesia aided by distance is gone. Traffic is bad everywhere. Luckily, my tolerance for the traffic and willingness to drive in it has also returned.

The other thing that I hear all the time is that one areas drivers are worse than another areas. I don’t buy it. I’ve seen idiot drivers everywhere. One universal annoyance is merging onto the highway. Drivers don’t seem to understand that the entering traffic has to yield to the traffic already on the road. Just speeding down the on ramp and expecting the faster traffic to get out of your way isn’t correct; even when you put on your directional. This is particularly annoying when I’m driving the motorhome. Big heavy vehicles can’t brake or maneuver fast enough.

Today was a warm, cloudy, and hazy day. Rain threatened to interrupter everything all day. It finally started to fall in light showers around the supper hour. It made the foliage very dull. I saw a lot of nice color along the way, but the lack of sun kept it very dull. All of the people out for the traditional Columbus day weekend leaf peeping were probably disappointed.

The blossom of the day.

Saturday October 12th 2018

It was a beautiful fall weekend day. The sun was shining bright with the high temperature in the mid sixties. Yesterday’s wind was gone. It was replaced by an occasional gentle breeze.

It would have been a good day to work on the satellite antenna on the roof, but I found another excuse. My neighbors were having a party in full view of my work zone. I didn’t feel like being part of the entertainment, or at the very least a big distraction to their party. I suppose they could have caught me if I fell off the roof. They were under twenty feet away. There will be better opportunities to work on the roof.

I think the party next door was a football watching party. The people are from Texas and they put up a Texas Longhorn flag this morning before the Texas vs. Oklahoma game came on TV. There were two or three extra cars of people in attendance, but they weren’t too loud and it was over by mid afternoon.

The campground staff kept the kids entertained with train rides.

Walking around the campground I saw many similar groups gathered. People are making the most of the good weather and the last holiday weekend of this camping season. With the exception of a few tent sites the campground seems to be full. I’ve been here on Memorial Day weekend a few times and all of the sites including the tent sites have been full to overflowing. Some of the changes to the campground over the years have reduced the number of sites in favor of a few more cabins, so there certainly have been more people in the campground. Another change to the campground was adding sewer to the majority of the campsites. The positive impact of that change is far less traffic on the restroom facilities. I remember the facility with a waiting line in the morning on a holiday weekend, now it looks like it gets far less use.

A holly bush with lots of berries.

Friday October 5th 2018

It was very windy this morning, but not as cool as I anticipated. The day started out close to the high temperature for the day around sixty. By the end of the day it was in the fifties and dropping.

I wanted to get up on the roof of the RV to work on the satellite dish antenna today. I’m not extremely comfortable up there, so I waited for the wind to die down. The blowing wind added a chill to the air and was causing a lot of leaves to come down on the roof. The wind finally let up late in the day as the sun was setting. I’ll try again tomorrow.

The campground is filling up for the holiday weekend. Some weekenders arrived on Thursday, but the bulk of the new arrivals started shortly after lunch today. This is the last weekend of the season for most of the weekend campers. Many campgrounds in this area close this weekend. This campground is open for a few more weeks.

There is a party atmosphere tonight. Some of the weekend arrivals came with enough wood to keep a fire going through out their stay. I can see two big fires with several people sitting around from my front window. There are also a couple of groups sitting around outside TVs watching the Red Sox vs. Yankees in the first game of the American League Division Series. As I’m writing this entry I have the game on my TV in the RV. Whenever something interesting happens in the game I hear the cheers or moans on the TV and from the groups watching the game near me.

Watching the ball game has really slowed down the completion of this blog entry. The game is now over with a Red Sox win. The Yankees really tested the Sox bullpen, but some how they hung on to win game one of the series.

Hidden blossom of the day.

Thursday October 4th 2018

Today was a dry and warm day, but the sun didn’t cast any shadows. It was cloudy all day. I finally got a chance to take my bicycle to the Cape Cod canal.

The rail road bridge over the Cape Cod Canal. The weather off the the west and south looks very threatening.

Shortly before noon I drove to the rail road bridge recreation area on the Cape Cod Canal in Buzzards Bay MA. This is the start of the north side canal access road which serves as a great bicycle trail and walking path. It is a little over seven miles long extending to the east entrance to the canal from Cape Cod Bay. I had the bike unloaded and ready to go when my plans went astray. The bicycle didn’t pass a simple safety test. As soon as I got on the bike I tested the brakes and the front break locked up. It wouldn’t release its grip on the wheel rim.

I haven’t used the bicycle in several weeks, probably months, and it is subject to the a lot of weather. The cable leading to the front brake had corrosion inside. I didn’t have any penetrating oil with me so I was limited in what I could try as I attempted to get it working again. After about five minutes it was still locked up tight, so I gave up and loaded the bicycle back on the carrier. My bicycle ride turned into a walk.

I walked about a mile and a half along the canal to the campground I plan to be staying at toward the end of this month. During the walk toward the campground the wind was at my back. The return trip had the wind in my face. Early in the walk the sun threatened to break through the clouds without success. By the time I was on my return route, rain threatened to fall from the clouds. Despite the less than perfect weather it was a good walk. Several small boats were in the canal and there were lots of birds to keep me amused. The pictures that follow are some of the interesting things I observed.

One of the bigger boats I saw today. It’s a far cry from some of the big ships that pass through the anal.

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I’m king of the world.

The seagull takes a nap while the other guys dry their wings.

Canal Patrol boat.

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This speed boat was trying to keep under the slow speed limit, but its motor was still very loud.

Wednesday October 3rd 2018

It rained most of the night. This morning it was foggy and drizzly. As the day went by it got drier and a little warmer. The temperature topped out in the mid sixties.

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On my drive back to the southern New Hampshire area I was happy to see some color in the foliage along the roads. It has been three years since I saw a multicolored fall. In 2016 I was in the Florida Georgia area at this time of year. Most of what I saw in that area was rust colored or just plain brown. Last year I was in Arizona during September and October. The desert just gets browner. At the seven thousand plus feet of altitude around the Grand Canyon there was some color, but nothing like the multicolored displays around here. In the Grand Canyon area if it wasn’t green it was bright yellow.

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The foliage season is getting started a couple of weeks late according to the TV weather talkers. I agree it was late getting started, but I think it is going to catch up with the average year quickly. Some of the forecasters are calling for a better than normal foliage year because of the hot wet summer, but I have heard at least one forecast say that the hot wet summer will result in a duller result. I was happy to see several deep red trees today. When combined with the more common orange and yellow trees it makes a very pretty presentation. The colored foliage is still in isolated low areas. The sweeping hillside displays and the tree lined road displays haven’t been achieved yet.

I’m currently staying in an area of Massachusetts that isn’t know for it’s foliage. As you approach the Cape Cod area the tree varieties change to primarily pine and oak. The Oak trees just turn brown late in the fall. They often don’t drop their leaves until after the first snow fall. I’ll be traveling back into the heart of Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire many times over the next few weeks, so I should get plenty of opportunity to see some of the real fall colors. I’d like to get a few pictures of the foliage to share in this blog. I don’t think I’ll be traveling into northern New England for anything, but it is always a possibility.

Close up of the blossom of the day.

Tuesday October 2nd 2018

The rain last night started heavy, but continued at the nuisance level most of the night into the morning. Steady rain of any level becomes white noise on the roof, but off and on rain or mist just builds up in the leaves of the overhead trees and drips onto the roof. The random loud sounds the drips on the roof produce makes it very difficult to ignore. I didn’t sleep well last night.

The black area in the middle of this picture is ground up paving from road surfaces under repair. The campground staff used it to fill a large muddy puddle in front of my campsite. They came back later with two more golf cart size loads to fill in the rest of the wet area. I hope tonight’s rain doesn’t wash away their work.

Most of the afternoon was rain free. It never cleared off or even threatened to allow the sun to lighten things up. Any hope of going for a bicycle ride was long gone. Instead I took care of one of life’s necessities. I went grocery shopping. I still had the bicycle on the back of the SUV which blocks access to the back. I had to load the back seat area with all of my purchases. My purchases continue to be a little more extensive than normal. I’m taking advantage of being back in my old home region to stock up on old favorites that aren’t available in other areas. I stumbled on one regional difference that I hadn’t thought about today. The Walmart I was shopping in had mostly brown eggs for sale instead of their usual white eggs. An egg is an egg, but my childhood was full of brown eggs. White eggs were only for decorating at Easter time.

It is raining steadily again tonight. Hopefully, it will stop completely or continue to rain at full strength all over night. I don’t really want to wake up to the sound of “pings” on the roof. Once the front passes through a couple of nice drier days are in the forecast. Today’s temperature was around seventy. Hopefully that will continue too.