July 27, 2012 Truro MA (Cape Cod)

Today we got to drop into the life of Dick’s sister and her partner in the town of Trurro on Cape Cod.  Although they each teach in Cambridge, they have a home on Cape Cod which we had never had the chance to visit.  It is a lovely house on nearly an acre of wooded land.

Patti and Barbara got up to almost catch the sunrise on the beach at 5:20am.  Dick and Joan passed on the opportunity.  It was a lovely morning, and great to see the scenery without so many people.

After breakfast, we got a tour of the back road areas of Cape Cod.  Much of the island is still wooded and seems very much in the country.  Then there are the developed areas, which are very busy and filled with people, cars, and buildings.

 

Barbara and Joan have an adorable dog named Keesha.  She was a rescue dog, rescued from Puerto Rico.  She has so much energy.  They think she is about a year and a half old, and she is quite a loving dog.  She knows how to play Frisby with herself, which is such a stich to watch.  She is also very excited about chasing chip monks and bunnies here at the Cape.

We saw several little village areas around harbors and tidal estuaries. It was nice to see the special places that Barb and Joan go to.

We really enjoyed having a special tour of “Barb’s Lighthouse”, The Cape Cod Highland Lighthouse where Barb is one of the PT staff people.

As in many places, the lighthouse staff are highly educated, committed individuals who enjoy sharing history and their love of lighthouses with the public.   Most of these people are retired from a variety of different places, including many teachers.

We learned that this lighthouse, like the one we saw in Cape Hatteras, had also been moved in 1996.  Just like Hatteras, it was jacked up and moved in one piece to keep it from falling into the ocean with erosion moving back the cliffs.  We love lighthouses.

We could see the golf course where Joan often plays from the top of the lighthouse.  What a beautiful setting!

We also got to drive into the famous Provincetown or P-town.  This was a very busy, bustling resort area and town.  Driving through the main street needed lots of concentration to not hit pedestrians.  The main street of town was only a lane and half wide.  Many interesting people and shops, but we didn’t have the time to really do much more than drive through and soak it in.

At the end of Provincetown there was another lighthouse.  This one you could walk about a mile or so to on the break wall at low tide.  We didn’t have the time to do that, but were able to take some photos and enjoy another view of a lighthouse.

Part of the peninsula is also the Cape Cod National Seashore and has some beautiful undeveloped beach and dune areas.  Thank goodness for those people who have protected these precious natural areas.  We stopped at a couple of the beach areas and they were really beautiful.

After lunch, Dick got caught up on some photos and blog work, while Patti enjoyed a great nap in their backyard hammock.  The temperature had dropped a bit, and Barbara brought her a down comforter, which felt wonderful.  A little rest in paradise.

Before we knew it, it was time to all pitch in to help make a fabulous feast of fresh veggies and shrimp on the grill.  All the food was wonderful.  We were joined for dinner by their neighbors and great friends, John and Claudia.  It was nice to meet their great folks and we all enjoyed a nice evening.

We finished up the night watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.  This is always powerful and fun to see this demonstration of peaceful coming together of people of the world.  The ending part where Paul McCartney led the audience in a sing-along of "Hey Jude" was really sweet.

Then off to bed, but tomorrow we head to the Boston area.

July 26 2012 Mystic CT to Turro (Cape Cod) MA

Couldn't get going too early this morning, because Mystic Seaport didn't open up until 9:00.  This amazing historical park and museum has been around since the 1940's and is dedicated to teaching and celebrating maritime life, whaling, sails, ships and history.  It was sprinkling a bit when we arrived and so we had the park mostly to ourselves for a couple of hours.  This led to some great individual and small group interaction with the excellent staff.  We got to learn about and watch the ceremony that sailors would do to celebrating paying off the debts that they had racked up.  It was called the dead horse ceremony.

There were beautiful artifacts, including some figureheads from ships.

We also met another of the amazingly qualified interpreters that we always meet.  This was one at a display on navigation, which as staffed by a retired Navy submarine commander.  He was a wealth of information.  We also had a great talk with a black smith, or ship's smith about the process of making and repairing metal pieces for ships.  This used to be a huge industry.  The shop at Mystic seaport is the only one known to still be around from all that were in use in the 1800's.

We saw a storytelling troop in action doing a great audience participation story.  Loved watching skilled storytellers at work.

We also got to see a ship that was under reconstruction.  This is the very last of the whaling schooners, out of nearly 3000 that once sailed the seas.  It is part of an amazing restoration, with the plan on making it able to sail again in another year or so.

Dick remembers going to this park in the 1950's.   Families are still coming here, and we saw a lot families and kids at day camp really engaged in fun and learning.

We left at about 2:30 knowing we had a long drive to the north part of Cape Cod to spend time with Dick's sister and her partner.  The drive went smoothly, although traffic was at times rather fierce.

We were able to make a quick stop to see, surprise.... more lighthouses.  This time a lovely one towards the north end of Cape Cod.  Then,as we were enjoying taking photos of it, there was as sign that said "Three Sisters Lighthouses", which we followed for about a third of a mile and found these three tiny little lighthouse that had once been where the larger one was, and had been split apart and now reunited again   Go lighthouses!  And four for one!

 And we got our first glimpses of the beach at Cape Cod...actually a series of amazing beaches.

We spent a splendid evening with Barbara and Joan at their fabulous Cape Cod style house.  Great food and good hospitality.  We also watched some of the rerun of the Women’s US Olympic trials for gymnastics.  Fun and helped get us in the mood for the Olympics to begin tomorrow night.

July 25, Phoenixville PA to Valley Forge PA, Hartford CT, Rocky Neck CT State Park, to Groton CT

Early up and over to Valley Forge National Military Park.  We were there before the park opened, so it was just us and the lawn maintenance crew.   A bit of shifting in the time and focus.  Here there were no battles, but it was the place where Washington and his troops wintered in the 3^rd year of the Revolutionary War.

Although there was no battle, 2000 men died in this area of cold, disease and starvation.  It was a turning point.  Where the rebels going to just quit and go home, or were they going to settle in, become professional soldiers and finish the job?

We got to see Washington’s Headquarters: The Pentagon of the time.  Also samples of the types of small huts that the soldiers who have slept in:  triple bunk beds in small, tiny rooms.  Again, we traveled back in our minds to that time.  It was more meaningful having just “heard” George Washington at Colonial Williamsburg.  Before the war, he was ready to retire as a farmer, but now, here he was.  We also read about how Martha would come each winter and join George helping out.

We decided to not wait around for the visitor’s center to open, but rather hit the road because we had some serious traveling to do today.  We drove through both Philadelphia during morning rush hour, and later over George Washington Bridge in New York City and got through the mass of traffic around New York right around noon.  Dick had done some great route planning, but we had crossed our fingers that there would be no big traffic snarls and there were none on the sides of the highways we were driving on.  Yah!

This put us on The Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, one of Dick’s most favorite roads to drive.  His family would drive this way when going to visit his grandparents who lived for many years in Higganum CT.  The road doesn’t allow trucks and has trees lining both sides as well as often growing on the medium strips.  There are also stone bridges that go over it.  Dick was thrilled that it is still as he remembers and relished this drive.

We stopped in Hartford to visit Mark Twain’s House and Museum.  Twain, after spending some time in California and in other travels, met a wealthy woman, Olivia, fell deeply in love and they married and settled down for quite some time in Hartford.  We took a lovely tour and got the chance to hear a lot about “Sam” as his family called him and his day-to-day life.  This was the home where he wrote Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer and many of his most brilliant work.

One of the things that was very interesting was an exhibit at the museum that focused on the issues of race and racism.  Mark Twain made quite a journey in his person understanding of race, going from growing up in a family who had several slaves as a child, to marrying into a strongly abolitionist family who were friends with Frederick Douglas.  Much of his later writing and speaking was strongly anti-racist.  This exhibit showed many interesting things of his writing, as well as showing racist artifacts from various museums.  This was very well done.

We wish that we had had time to go visit the home of his neighbor, Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose book Uncle Tom’s Cabin had a role in exposing the evils of slavery to the larger world.  But no time this trip.

We drove a half hour down the road to Higganum, and got to see the grandparent’s house.  Dick recalled all of the trips there, eating out on the screened in back porch, running and playing with the kids in the neighborhood, he showed Patti the window of the bedroom where he always stopped.  As we were poking about, a car pulled up and someone down the street asked if everything was okay.  It turns out that she used to babysit in that house after the grandparents sold it, and he and Dick were able to reminisce about the town 50 years ago when he would visit.  THAT is small town life right there.

We also looked at the old Methodist church that the family sometimes visited, and Dick's dad sometimes preached at.

We stopped and picked up a light supper at Higgies, where the family always got ice cream and hot dogs.  They now serve frappes and lots of fancy seafood as well.  It was tasty.

Then we drove down to Rocky Neck State Park, the beach where they family would always go while in town.  It is still a family beach with lots of kids and families running around. 

 As we walked around, Dick remembered the sand bar a ways out, where you could swim to it and then stand up out in the water.  The water was calm, and you could see Long Island on the horizon from there.  There were many happy days spent at Rocky Neck.

13 miles down the road for our hotel for the night.  We both fell asleep early.  This vacationing is tiring.

July 24, Frederick MD, Antietam Battlefield, to Gettysburg PA, to Phoenixville PA

We had understood that it was often good to be able to be on a battlefield early in the morning, before the crowds and the heat of the day.  We were able to do this at Antietam Battlefield arriving at a little after 8:00 am.  At Antietam at critical battle was fought in the fall of 1862.  On the grounds of this first major battle fought on Northern territory the result was a blunting of this invasion and threat on Washington.  In this one-day battle over 23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing.  This was the highest total to that time. 

There were two particularly bloody encounters in this battle.  One was at what became known as the Bloody Sunken Road where first Union soldiers were mowed down as they emerged from fully grown corn.  The Confederates fired from the Sunken Road.  Then the tide turned and thousands of Southern soldiers died on the road.  This scene was immortalized by Brady/s photographs that gave the country a very realistic, non-romanticized view of the war.

There were many soldiers from Pennsylvania in this battle and the state honored their contribution with a series of statues.  We were struck by how young the soldiers looked in the statues and realized that this was accurate with the many 18 year olds who fought there.

Later in the day there was another deadly battle, this time for possession of a beautiful stone bridge.  Again, after many futile charges, the Confederate troops were overwhelmed.  The reality was that the Battle of Antietam was a draw.  But, due to the fact that the Confederate Army withdrew from the battleground and returned to Virginia, the Union claimed victory.  This outcome had huge ramifications.  Britain had been considering recognizing the Confederacy.  After this battle, they did not.  It was also the victory that Lincoln had needed in order to issue the Emancipation Proclamation without appearing desperate.

As we left the battlefield, we stopped at the National Cemetery.  Such a stop gave us a tangible sense of the real loss of life in this event.  These cemeteries were filled with Union soldiers.  Confederate soldiers were left buried in shallow graves throughout the battlefield or in small cemeteries in surrounding communities.

One discovery today as that the Union actually came prepared with a plan and resources to deal with the causalities of a major battle.  The doctor who was in charge, Dr. Letterman, set up procedures and plans that established the basic military medical procedures that are still in use today. 

We got to visit a museum that was one of the field hospitals that he set up just outside of the battlefield.  An impressive statistic was that even though there were so many wounded, all Union casualties and many Confederate, we under a doctor’s care within 24 hours of the battle.  He set up ambulances, field hospitals, and arrangements for follow-up hospital care in nearby towns and larger cities.

Clara Barton, whose home we visited two days earlier, was one of the people at the battlefield before the fighting even fully began.  She, as well as other nurses provided essential care for the wounded and dying throughout the war.  She also was instrumental in the ideal of serving all the wounded no matter which side they were on. 

Following up on that, we drove back into Fredrick and visited the larger Museum of Civil War Medicine.  This was a fantastically thorough look at medicine in that time.  They followed these issues form recruitment to recuperation hospitals. We learned that hospitals were not common prior to the Civil War, but through the experience of so many wounded soldiers, hospitals began to spread afterwards.  Prior to that, health care was mostly provided at home by untrained family members.

Exhibits covered veterinary medicine, with over a million horses dying in the war. We also learned about the important role African American women and men played in health care, both in the Confederacy and Union hospital, including most of the nurses being black women.  We also found out that 95% of surgeries were amputations performed with anesthesia.  The old myth that they just had to “bite the bullet” was not true.

Finishing up in the museum, we made about an hour’s drive to Gettysburg, the most visited battlefield.  Here we were in crowd shock from the minute we arrived.  The gigantic visitor’s center was crawling with people, and there were tickets available for all kinds of tours, shows, movies, nearly a Disneyland environment. We both were on overwhelm and decided that the best thing to take a quick drive to the actual battlefield. 

We planned on hooking up hook up with a ranger talk out on the battlefield where a ranger who had been at Gettysburg for 20 years was walking us through Picket’s Charge, a famous part of the battle.  This ranger was able to paint a very vivid picture of what was happening, and especially how lonely it was in the top command roles for the generals who were making these literally life or death decisions that would impact thousands of men.  He did an amazing job.

We took a few more photos of the many, many monuments that are all around, and then decided that we didn’t want to fight the crowds to be there.  We were feeling our own version of battle fatigue and were ready to take off.  We wished we had the chance to see the spot where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address, but not today.

A drive a couple of hours up the road put us right outside of Valley Forge, ready for tomorrow.

July 23, Silver Springs MD visit Washington DC to Frederick MD

We were up early (surprise!) and caught the subway to get downtown DC.  We needed help to figure out the fare machines, even though everything is written in English, it still didn’t make much sense as to what we needed to do.  The metro went fine.

We arrived at union station, a couple blocks from the Capital Building.  Our first stop was the Memorial to Japanese American Patriotism in World War II.  With our continued interest in the injustice around the Japanese-American internment during WWII by the American government, this memorial was quite simply presented, but still very powerful.  We realize that it wasn’t intended to be a major educational opportunity. But sitting almost in sight of the Capital, it was an important statement.  The centerpiece of the memorial was a sculpture of two cranes bound with barbed wired.

Next, we were headed over to the Capital for our scheduled tour.  We were both immediately struck by the greatly increased security since the last time we each were in DC.    Many roads on the Capital grounds were now barricaded. And we saw a guard with an automatic rifle.  We chatted with one guard about the changes, and he had also been there long enough to have observed continuing changes taking place.

We dwell on the security issue because we were caught up in in when we attempted to enter the new visitor’s center with a backpack filled with items we needed for our day in the city.  It turns out we had many items that were no allowed in including:  bottled water, our lunch, sunscreen and insect repellent, empty water bottles (which we tried by emptying them, but that didn’t meet their requirements.)  We finally had to give up on the tour.  8:30 was too soon to ditch all of those items for the day.  Sad that it has come to this.  We noticed greater security elsewhere throughout the city, but nothing like we saw at the Capital.

Plan B took us walking down Pennsylvania Avenue where we went by the Newseum, a museum dedicated to news.  We didn’t have time to go inside (and it was pretty pricey for just a quick visit), but we became quite engrossed with an outdoor feature that had front pages from newspapers every state plus a selection from elsewhere in the world.

We were quite interested in the different priorities that were reflected in what was presented on those front pages.

Further down the street, we came to The Old Post Office Building, one of the tallest towers in the city.  The National Park Service administers the tower portion of this building, which houses such organizations as the National Endowment for the Arts.  We took the elevator to the top flower and had the chance to view the nation’s capital from this unique perspective.  Our timing was perfect to listen to a ranger talk.  She explained the history of the building and future plans for it.

We were then within a couple blocks of The Ford Theater which Dick had never seen.  This is, of course, the theatre where Abraham Lincoln was shot only five days after the surrender of the south in the Civil War.  We were able to attend a remarkable theatrical performance in the theatre.  The Park service ranger appeared as a senior police official who as in attendance that night in 1865.  He was splendid as he described the events from a police and personal perspective.  We had hoped to go across the street to the building in which Lincoln had actually died, but it was clear that the wait to enter that building was going to be far too long for our schedule.  So we were off a couple of bocks to the Archives of the United States.

The National Archives is the place where records, documents, photos, tapes, and other documents are held. It often gets referred to as “American’s Attic”, but must more accessible.  Especially moving was seeing the original Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the US.   We both appreciated seeing parents bring their children to see these pieces of paper that are so meaningful to our country.

The last stop of the day was the new Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian.  We had been looking forward to seeing it as one of the newest museums on the mall.  It was really fine.  We were struck by the fact that this place was clearly not laid out in a linear fashion, almost more like a mind map.  There were many wonderful exhibits, including one about origin stories and creation.  These were all presented by many different Indian nations and were curated by members of those particular tribes.  It was not just national peoples in the US, but included groups throughout all of the North and South America.  It was very ambitious and filled with beauty.

A highlight was lunch in their café.  The café featured traditional Native America food from many different regions and included things like palm heart salad, cactus and mushrooms, Indian fry bread, wild rice, salmon, buffalo stew.  It was one of the best meals we had on the trip.  We know that food is such an important part of culture and we loved the idea of being able to actually eat some of these wonderful dishes rather than just look at dioramas of people eating.  Yum, yum, yum.

We caught the subway back to Silver Spring having walked about ten miles today (according to our pedometer, so we are just exaggerating!)  Then an easy drive up to Frederick Maryland to position ourselves well for another intense day tomorrow.

July 22, 2012 Alexandria VA to Silver Springs MD visit Washington DC

First thing this morning was a visit to one of the most solemn places in the US:  Arlington National Cemetery.  There are over 300,000 military service members, plus some of their family,  buried there.  Because it was early, we had the place mostly to ourselves for the first hour.  It is overwhelming to see hill after hill with the white headstones.  So many people, often died in combat with sad stories.

We were there for the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider.  It is so serious and solemn.  A ritual done with such respect and precision.  It struck Patti as a meditative process for these young men, focusing on those who served and died and need to be treated with respect.

They don’t allow cars to drive around the grounds, so it is just walking or tour buses.  We were happy to walk.

We went to Arlington House, the former home of Robert E. Lee and his family, his wife being the great-granddaughter of Martha and George Washington.   The home had to be left once the war was really going, and then eventually was confiscated and the garden turned into the first of the cemetery plots for the National Cemetery.  All that we knew about Lee filled in the blanks as we toured the house.

The grave site for John F. Kennedy was powerful, especially for Dick, who was 16 when Kennedy was killed  The wave of deep emotion that came over Dick was so strong, even after all of these years.  That assassination was so sad for  the country.  Buried next to him was Jackie Kennedy Onassis.  And nearby were Robert and then Ted Kennedy.  That family gave so much for our country.

There were other powerful memorials: for The Challenger and Columbia Space Shuttle crews, for those killed trying to rescue those hostages in Iran.  There were famous names and ones known only to their families, and many unknown.

We left Arlington and drove close by to the Marine Memorial, also known as the Iwo Jima statute.  Again, powerful images. One we were familiar with, but seeing something in person is never the same as a photo or on TV.

We then drove down to the Mall. Traffic and parking were terrible, even on a Sunday morning, but we finally found a parking spot.  We saw many of the familiar monuments that we like to see every time we visit the city.  Our biggest goal was to visit several or the newer memorials that we had not yet seen.  We were successful.

First we saw the FDR memorial.  This was massive and very moving, having symbols and quotation for each of his 4 terms in office.  One of the most powerful was the simple statue of him sitting in his wheelchair at the beginning.  A powerful supportive image to all of those who use wheelchairs everywhere.

There was also some great images from the Depression including several men standing in a breadline, an elder farm couple, and a man listening to his radio presumably to a  fireside chat with the president.  There was also a really nice statute of Eleanor.  We were highly impressed.

The other new memorial that we loved was that of Martian Luther King Jr.  This had a carving of King looking over the water, plus many of his quotations throughout his lifetime.  We were struck that King would have been delighted at what an integrated crowd was gathering to celebrate his vision, lots of African-Americans, but lots of all different races and cultures.  And many people asking others to take their photos, which we were glad to help out. 

Very, very nice.

We were less thrilled with the WWII Memorial.  This had a pillar for each of the states, plus each of the American territories, all with a wreath.  There were some nice relief panels with scenes from the war and a couple of quotes, but it was a hard memorial to connect with.

The Korean War Memorial was striking as you approached it.  19 soldiers seeming to be wadding through the bushes in full gear.  There was a black wall, similar to the Viet Nam Memorial with engravings of faces of those who served.    Patti’s dad was in the Navy during the Korean conflict.  This memorial seemed to capture some of the humanity of those who served.

The Lincoln Memorial is one we each visit whenever we are in Washington, and with our Civil War studies we needed to be there.  It was the most crowded, yet also moving to be there.  We each took the time to read his full second inaugural address, knowing that the Civil War was nearing an end at that point, but had been so devastating.  It ends with the quote about “with malice toward none. With charity towards all.”

The Viet Nam Memorial continues to be a place that draws people to come and touch the wall and look for names of loved ones.  They have a guy there on a ladder who could help you do a rubbing of your loved one’s name.  So much sad loss.  The additional statutes of the men who served and the women who served finish out this powerful remembrance.

So much more we would love to see, but time to move an.

We spent about an hour at The National Cathedral, the sixth largest cathedral in the world.  It is Gothic and massive, with gargoyles and the whole bit.  The stain glass windows were wonderful.  They also were displaying some of the panels of the AIDS Quilt in honor of its 25 anniversary.  So nice to see these names of those who died of AIDS also memorialized.

The last stop of the day was to the home of Clara Barton, Civil War nurse and the founder of The American Red Cross.  She was an amazing humanitarian, very brave and a huge thinker.  When she got the chance to have a free home built for her, she chose basically a large barn where she could headquarter the Red Cross and store all kinds of relief items.  She also was the person who started the first aid training process and first aid kits.  It was very fun that the National Park Service does great interpretation for her home and about her life.  She was quite a feminist and a Unitarian.  Terrific to learn more about this amazing woman.

Then on to our next hotel for dinner and early to bed. Today we walked somewhere around 9 or 10 miles.  Tired, but happy to be able to do this.