(8/13)

‘Rest Day’ Shrewsbury, MA 

(0 mi)

Woke up and tiptoed downstairs to locate Kathy and the dogs, who were nowhere to be found. Went out the back door and found them sitting on the steps in the breezeway enjoying the early morning peacefulness – locked out of the house for the previous 45 minutes after taking the dogs out for their morning ‘business’ and closing the locked door behind her. Dawned on me that I had closed the same door when I came out - we were now both locked out and enjoying the early mor… Paul eventually came out to retrieve the newspaper and we came in for coffee. The funny part? They had neglected to lock the front door the night before and it was open the whole time we sat out there… After an 11-day push across six states and 1,041 mi., we decided it was time to take a day off before the final ‘assault’ on the Cape and the completion of our Coos Bay to Cape Cod adventure. Paul and Sandy graciously offered their guest bedroom for another evening, in spite of the fact that our dogs made their cat extremely nervous. Paul took us to a local bike shop for route info to get us across the eastern half of MA safely; AAA to get us books & maps to make the trip home an lot easier; and then to lunch with Carl Kaliszewski, the District Governor for the Rotary clubs in District 7910. Carl’s a financial planner who’s current mantra is ‘cash is king.’ We were both born in 1953…Talked to Susan Chambers, the writer for the World newspaper who did such a good job of inspiring local interest in our ‘cause’ and trip in a pre-departure spread. Gave her the ‘scoop’ on our pending completion and some observations from along the way…

Washed my bike and our clothes in the p.m., and had a delicious swordfish dinner on Paul & Sandy’s deck in the company of son Matt, a commercial real estate/internet shoe sales entrepreneur. Kathy was hoping to see a ‘firefly’- a source of summertime entertainment for all kids growing up ‘back east’- but there were none out on this evening. Julia Child died today. I’ll never forget the hour I spent in her Cambridge, MA kitchen, talking about the culinary virtues of Oregon Dungeness crab and wine. I left samples of both with her…

(8/14)

Shrewsbury, MA to East Sandwich, MA 

(97.0 mi)

Woke up early, anxious to get on the road and smell the salt/ocean air after leaving the OR Coast 51 days ago…Beautiful, sunny morning – forecast good after a rainy few days. Larry, a local Rotarian with a great sense of humor came over during breakfast and took pictures of our departure. Said goodbye to our hosts and headed SE through small New England towns that were humming with Saturday a.m. activity, intensified by the warm sunshine. Fast pace – I am obviously ready to get this journey over. Progress slowed a bit when I got a flat tire (only the 3rd for the entire trip) and had to call Kathy back for additional support due to a pump malfunction. Went off the shoulder, hit rough pavement and blew out a sidewall as I was watching golfers tee off at a country club. Could have been worse… Reached the coast at Plymouth, MA in the early afternoon. Passed on the chance to visit ‘the Rock’ as we are both anxious to get ‘on’ the Cape. Following Rt. 3A south, getting closer to our destination with each revolution of the bicycle wheels. Road narrow with lots of weekend traffic – really have to pay attention. Stopped at a local bike shop to see if it was feasible to ride across the Sagamore Bridge, the eastern access to Cape Cod. They suggested that we walk the bike, as the sidewalk had a 12’ dropoff to the roadway. Rt. 3A turned into busy Rt.3 (no bikes allowed on this section) about 2 mi. before the bridge and we decided to ‘stack it’ and drive across the crowded span for safety’s sake. Crossed the Cape Cod Canal at roughly 3 p.m. and were ‘officially’ on Cape Cod – we made it!!! When we departed Coos Bay nearly two months ago, we estimated that we would arrive at the Cape in ‘mid-August’. Surprised at how accurate our original calculations were considering we had no idea what we were getting ourselves in to way back then. Kathy suggested that we could be finished with the ride at this point, as we had accomplished our ‘Coos Bay to Cape Cod’ goal in technical terms…After explaining that Provincetown was ‘our’ final destination, I got back on the bike on the southern end of the bridge and headed out on Rt. 6A, the scenic road that follows the northern shoreline through the quaint, old towns of Barnstable, Yarmouth, Dennis & Brewster. Got as far as East Sandwich and after seeing a steady stream of ‘No Vacancy’ signs, decided we’d better start looking for a room. Finally found lodging at the Whaleback Inn Cottages after numerous “sorry, no pets”… As it was, we had to talk our way in there with the “we’ve stayed in over 50 motels and our dogs have gotten nothing but praise, and they are really only mid-sized models, and they were raised as indoor dogs, and you won’t even know they’ve been here, and we pick up the poop” spiel before the poor old lady even got a chance to get a word in, let alone say no… Moved in to cottage #7, went grocery shopping and spent the evening relaxing in preparation for the final push out to the ‘tip’ in the a.m. – or so we thought…

(8/15)

East Sandwich, MA

(0 mi)

Woke up to wind & rain - the remnants of Hurricane Charlie as it passed up the eastern seaboard after unleashing its wrath on the Florida coastline. Would normally just ‘suit up’ in my raingear, put my head down and ‘go for it,’ but the roads are so narrow here and there’s no shoulder to speak of. Add to that, bumper to bumper ‘tourist traffic’ and it’s a recipe for disaster… The Weather Channel painted a bleak picture for the entire day so we decided to ‘hole up’ in the cabin and use the time to get caught up on our web site ‘updates,’ write a few postcards and read & relax, a real luxury up to this point in the trip. (Actually, Kathy’s done nothing but read – 9 books to date – while she waits alongside the road for me to pedal by.) Hard to be so close to Provincetown and have to postpone the ‘grand finale’ because of marginal weather. After all, we ride in the rain all winter long back in Oregon… Kathy did her customary ‘room rearrange’ – move the furniture around so that the location of each piece suited her – as she had in many of the nearly-50 motel rooms we had stayed in to date. Glad she wasn’t so inclined during our recent ‘home stay’ in Shrewsbury…Nearing dinnertime, we drove further up the road to Brewster to locate the Brewster Fish House, a first-class seafood establishment recommended by my good friend Bill Lemoine. Not only did he insist that we dine there in celebration of the journey’s end, but he even paid for our dinner with cash slipped into a ‘good luck’ card given to us before we left home. Said if for some reason we had to abandon the trip before making it to the Cape, he wanted the money back and we’d go down to Roger’s Zoo (a local pub) and drink to our failure… Standing room only as we waited in line to get on the list for a table. Came back in an hour after some gift shopping at the General Store and had a wonderful dinner of Crisp Skin Wild Striped Bass and Butter Braised Lobster Tarte, accompanied by numerous glasses of Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. A real contrast from the weeks we spent in the Plains states where ‘fried’ was the specie of fish on the menu (except when it was ‘baked fish’…). Thanks Bill & Sharon!!!

(8/16)

East Sandwich, MA

(100 yds…)

Woke up to a steady rain, minus the wind that accompanied yesterday’s stormy weather. Forecast was better for tomorrow but we were antsy and decided to give it a try. Packed up the truck, put on full raingear (jacket, waterproof tights, ‘booties’ and even a motel-room shower cap stretched over my helmet to keep the water out of the vent holes) and checked out of cabin #7 at about 9:30 a.m., a rather late start but with only a half days ride ahead of us, no problem… so I thought. Took a quick cell phone call from local Rotarian Mike Hosie (Are you there yet?) at the end of the driveway and then said my customary ‘pedal on’ to Kathy and headed out on the road. Didn’t get very far - one hundred yards, give or take a few revolutions of the pedals. Right past the “Dismount at R/R Crossing” sign, which was right under the big yellow slippery bicycle image sign, which was right before the railroad tracks that cut across the road at a 45 degree angle… Don’t know why I made the momentary decision to ignore the warning, because I know better. Even without all the verbal and visual clues, I know that wet tracks and wet tires – skinny bicycle ones no less – usually mean only one thing. It’s gonna hurt… As soon as my front wheel hit the track I went down – hard –in the wet roadway. The SUV behind me swerved around me as I picked myself up, shaken, and limped to an adjacent sandy pull-out on the side of the road. The driver stopped and asked me if I needed help – an ambulance, a ride to the hospital – but thanks to his quick reflexes and good brakes, I needed neither. Kathy was six cars back in the lineup and she didn’t see the spill but she knew something was wrong when the parade stopped so suddenly. My left hip took the worst of it and I limped to the truck to regain my composure and sort things out. My brake levers and handle bars were twisted in the wrong direction and my rear view mirror, attached to my glasses, was nowhere to be found. It apparently came off when my helmeted head bounced on the pavement and I spent 15 minutes going over the scene trying to locate it, to no avail. Quick roadside surgery on the bike had things straightened out in short order, but I told Kathy I couldn’t go on without the mirror. It was dangerous enough to ride on these narrow roads seeing what was coming up behind you –without that ability was suicidal… Deciding to sit it out for one more day, we called the Whaleback Inn and asked the landlady if we could check back into cabin #7. She said it had already been cleaned (and the furniture returned to its original location) but we were welcome to spend another night – for $93 bucks of course… Unloaded the truck, moved the furniture back where it “should be” and changed out of the wet, sandy riding gear. The hip abrasion was already starting to color so I took a handful of Ibrupropfen and we drove across the island to Hyannis (the Kennedy ‘compound’, etc.) to find a bike store and a new mirror.  What a ZOO! The area had been severely ‘overbuilt’ since my last visit decades ago and was nothing more than a continuous  strip mall filled with everything that’s wrong with this country – fast food joints, ‘dollar stores’, big-box discounters and every other type of commercial eyesore. The roads leading into town, bumper-to-bumper, the place crawling with tourists looking to spend money… We found a bike store, got a new mirror and a better map that showed a safer ‘bike route’, and drove back to the ‘sane’ side of the island where the quaintness one expects on Cape Cod still prevails. Received a call from a local radio D.J. wanting to do an interview. Gave him a recap of the trip and its purpose, and he wished us luck in our final miles. Cooked dinner in the cabin and turned in early – not the day we had planned on or expected…

(8/17)

East Sandwich, MA to Provincetown, MA 

(59.0 mi)

Up early, determined to get this final leg finished and the monkey off our backs. Sky still overcast and threatening, but not raining - yet. Checked out – again – and headed toward Provincetown, taking the first opportunity to get off the main road and on to the back roads the meandered through the wooded residential sections of the Cape between 6A & the even busier Rt.6. The only traffic at this time in the morning was the occasional ‘local’ heading off to work or lawn maintenance crews getting an early start. Called Kathy periodically to make sure we both took the same (and hopefully correct) turn at the frequent junctions we encountered – that was until I dropped my cell phone on the pavement after a quick call from my pal Jim Harris in Phoenix, rendering the only link to my wife and the Tundra inoperable thanks to a broken screen. Fine mess you got us into now Ollie… Map took us back out on to Rt.6 through Barnstable and Yarmouth, where I picked up a segment of one of the paved bike trails that criss-cross the Cape and are used mainly by tourists out for ‘family’ bike rides. Kathy was able to drive on the adjacent road for about 6 mi. until the ‘bike only’ trail led off into the woods and she was forced back out on to 6A. Made arrangements to rendezvous with her in Orleans, about 5 mi. NE where the peninsula narrows as it turns northward toward P-town. Joined the middle-aged men on mountain bikes, out on their seasonal vacation ride with the wife & kids, who wandered back and forth across the path, still unsteady on their new, training wheel-equipped department store bicycles. Might have been safer on the highway. Certainly would have been faster… Orleans was packed with tourists – the sunny finally out after two days of rain - when I arrived and it took Kathy and I a while to find one another. I knew where I was…Got a quick cup of coffee and decided to take our chances back out on the side roads where we could at least stay closer together. Pedaled through Eastham and North Eastham, where we got onto Rt.6 for the final 18 or so miles out to the tip of Cape Cod. The traffic was heavy and in some stretches, I was passing the slowed line of cars as I rode along the shoulder at 23+ mph, in a big hurry to finish this journey. Raced through South Wellfleet and Wellfleet past roadside T-shirt stands, antique shops and restaurants serving ‘local seafood.’ Truro soon turned into North Truro and we were now back on 6A, riding along sandy beaches dotted with vacation rentals and ‘seaside’ motels, all sporting ‘No Vacancy’ signs as evidence of the annual tourist invasion that has turned this once-beautiful area into an over built, over developed getaway for the East Coast hordes… Periodic glimpses from across the bay of the Pilgrim Monument tower in the center of Provincetown teased me as I pumped the pedals increasingly harder, thoughts of the trip’s magnitude starting to race across my brain as the conclusion to my ‘dream’ got closer with every revolution. As I passed the ‘Entering…’ sign, I started to sense the expected ‘emotional feeling’ creep into my throat as I realized that we had finally made it - ridden across the entire country and then some, and were going to arrive in one piece - bruised but not broken, lean and lighter, and most important…still married. The warm fuzzies were abruptly interrupted when I came upon a scene that could have just as easily been yours truly, had it not been for the prayers and good thoughts of friends and family over the past 7 weeks. Up ahead in the road, a crowd had gathered around police and medical personnel who were working on a recreational cyclist who had been…you guessed it -  hit by a car. I rolled up to the Tundra as Kathy was taking a photo of the accident and said let’s get the hell out of here and get this thing over. This is not the way I wanted to remember my last few miles… I charged off with Kathy in hot pursuit as we flew over the narrow, crowded and hilly streets that wind through Provincetown on our way to the beaches that jut out into the Atlantic Ocean. The town was crawling – everyone out in the sunshine after being cooped up indoors while the hurricane’s remnants  passed over. Got out to the eastern shoreline, expecting to find easy access to the water so I could formally dip my wheel in the ocean and officially complete the ride. The first beach we came to was obviously a popular spot – there were already hundreds of bicycles (literally) lining the roadway on a football field-length bike rack. A steady stream of ‘buff’ (and not-so-buff) men, most only wearing shorts, were entering the narrow, sandy path leading to the beach dune. I’d forgotten to tell Kathy that in addition to being a tourist magnet, P-Town was a ‘gay Mecca’ and had been for decades. I suggested that it probably wasn’t a good idea for me to go walking out on that beach in spandex, with or with her and a bicycle wheel. Her only comment? What a waste… The next beach we came to charged $10 bucks ‘admission’ and I’ll be dammed if I was going to end our trip on that note, so we drove back toward town and found an accessible corner of the bay behind the breakwater and waded out into it for the final photo op. A somewhat anticlimactic ending to a 4300+ mile journey that began back on June 22nd at Sunset Bay in Charleston, OR. I hid behind the passenger’s door long enough to change out of my sweaty riding gear, took a congratulatory phone call from the staff at the WS&RC, and did a quick cell phone interview with Tim Navotney, the anchor at KCBY, the local TV station back in Coos Bay/North Bend. The 1989 Dom Perrion, on ice in the cooler since the morning, stayed there – neither of us feeling very celebratory at the moment after the events of the past few days. We stopped in town long enough to fill up with gas and then headed back toward the mainland in the afternoon traffic. Stopped at the ‘famous’ ________________ fish house and ordered a lobster roll and a clam roll ‘to go.’ We drove back to Wellfleet, followed the road down to the harbor, and washed down the mediocre rolls with a can of Rolling Rock at a picnic table next to the beach. The bay was busy – small crafts, recreational and commercial were coming in and going out of the harbor in the late afternoon sunshine. After a quiet moment of reflection, we loaded the dogs back into the truck and headed off the island, crossing the Sagamore Bridge at 5:50 p.m. and beginning our long drive home as we headed West into a beautiful setting sun…