EASTHAM AND WELLFLEET PONDS

My daughter visits Cape Cod regularly and told me about the Kettle Ponds of Wellfleet. Looking through brochures we found Salt Pond Visitors Center at Eastham, which is near Wellfleet. Starting there was a good idea. The visitors center has an excellent museum and two 12 minute films. One deals with the geological formation of the island, the kettle ponds and salt ponds.  The other shows actual 1900's footage aboard a whaler. The museum has nicely done artifacts of whaling days from Cape Cod. Well worth a visit.

  This salt pond outside the visitors center was once a kettle pond of fresh glacial water. The sea broke through and turned it into a salt pond. It is now stocked with lobster eggs and local people can pay to harvest here. A Lobster female can emit as many as a million eggs. Much of the eastern arm of the cape is part of the Cape Cod National Sea Shore. As such, many places are public, beaches, fresh and salt water ponds, marked trails for bikers and walkers, bird watching and, of course, preservation. Its difficult to do as we like to do and visit a place briefly, take pictures, talk to people and get a feeling for the place since parking regulations here are strictly enforced and one needs to pay $15 to park just about anywhere in the National Park. In fact, the map given us at the center tells of each beach controlled by the city they are within. All have that same permit parking. Some parking areas are unmanned.  One person stays in the Bronco while the other takes pictures. We must make it necessarily brief. On manned beaches, we've asked to park briefly to take pictures and leave.
Also, all roads around private property near beaches have strictly enforced No Parking regulations on both sides of the road all over the cape. It does solve a host of problems for residents.

  On our way to Gull Pond, we stopped at the Marconi Bluff, (parking here was free), to visit the spot where once stood the first wireless telegraph transmitter. A model of the station and wreckage of the old station are on this spot.

The first transatlantic telegram was sent from this station from President Roosevelt to King Edward the VII of England on January 19, 1903.
Passing through Wellfleet, we found a real, working drive-in theatre. There are just over 500 of them left in the U.S.

Gull Pond is a beauty. Fresh, warm water. Shallow for a long way out. Kids about 3 1/2 feet tall can still walk out to the raft here. These freshwater ponds are the Cape's source of drinking water. They are not spring fed. My expectation was of small ponds, in a string, like large natural hot tubs vanished when I saw this beautiful sight. I only went in up to my knees. (Parking, doncha know.) 

Here people swim and can rent a kayak.

We left and drove the Ocean Rd. and sought other ponds at Eastham, smaller ones like this Depot Pond.

The beach isn't very wide but you can pull up your car and a chair and swim, fish and enjoy-no charge for parking.  Herring Pond is the same, even smaller with tighter access. Quiet.
This pay-to-park beach is right in the arm of Cape Cod Bay. Not quite the romantic setting one thinks about reminiscent of the song. Maybe by moonlight when the tide is in. It looked like tidal lowlands for a mile out. Every type of clam, snail, tube worm and other critters are found here in these extended tidal flats. Many people seemed to be clamming as we watched.

We stumbled across an old cemetery and carefully parked in the driveway of an empty house and visited it.

Here are old slate stones, interesting tales they tell of epidemics, child birth and heartbreak. This cemetery and one called Cove Burying Grounds are on the Historic Register.Cataloged and every inscription here can be found on-line at this link: www.capecodgravestones.com
Thanks to the park, much of the salt marsh here is preserved.

Since it was Fathers Day, we decided to stop at Rock Harbor and pick up a couple lobsters.The first time I ever cooked one. Delicious. And, to think the early pilgrims and the Indians didn't eat lobster. They used them for bait. In fact, during the 1800's they almost fished them to extinction in the area. A good fisherman could gather 25,000 in a load that sold in New York for a penny a piece.

All the tools I gathered were mostly unnecessary.
For more pictures click the following link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/1579penn/62010KettlePondsOfWellfleet#

SURPRISES ON THE ROAD TO HOUMA

We left Golden Meadow and headed for the “big” city of Houma. Via the internet, we found J. & N. truck stop, a place to water, gas up, dump your tanks and wash the vehicles. Jim chose the scenic route, a narrow road that follows a marsh and ends in the very small town of Du Lac where we wanted to try much touted seafood dishes at Schmoopy’s Restaurant.

Our first surprise was running into an insurance check point on a stretch of road that gives you no place to turn around. What a novel idea. We chuckled some, and decided it was a dang good idea. With 15 years on the road, Jim had never seen an insurance check point.

Our second surprise was this gorgeous pristine marsh. Jim likes little used back roads. Thirty miles of twisting curves and little traffic allowed us to enjoy the marsh plants and birds free of any human intervention, it seemed. We saw no garbage, plastic bags, old bottles and tires anywhere, the marsh as nature intended it to be.

What a treat. The pictures don’t do it justice because sitting high in the motor home gives us a better view than standing on the ground.

We pulled into the small town of Du Lac and headed for Schmoopys, a restaurant touted for its good fresh seafood. The haphazard gravel and dirt parking lot was full without any obvious place to accommodate a motor home and “toad.” Some guy said, “You could park it out back if that red pick-up wasn’t in the way.” The pick-up in back of Schmoopys was taking up a lot of room but slowly and carefully Jim managed to squeeze by. When we got upstairs, (this restaurant is on stilts) this guy came out of the kitchen with a big smile and welcomed us heartily. He told us he watched us from above. It was his pick-up. We learned later, he was the boss.

I rarely order anything deep fried but when sampling new cuisines, all rules are suspended. I made a complete meal out of appetizers, all of which were deep fried. Home made crab pups, filled with crab, creamed cheese and a bread stuffing; mini crawfish pies with a Louisiana roue made of celery, onion and green pepper and a flour & oil gravy; and bacon wrapped oysters battered and fried. Delectable, every one. Jim is fond of bisque and declared it delicious. His meat pie, also an appetizer, was much like a cornish pasty and tasty. People thought I was a bit strange, I guess, taking pictures of our food. For me, oysters are best raw, except for these, the best cooked oysters I’ve ever tasted. He had other menu items I’d never heard of. I wanted to try them all. If you get a chance, go to Schmoopys.

We traveled through several small towns and stopped to buy a greeting card at a Dollar General where we got another surprise. The clerk below tested my one dollar bills. Whaa? She told me she had accepted a counterfeit ONE DOLLAR BILL? I couldn’t help but chuckle and asked her if I could feel it and take pictures. She consented but didn’t think it was near as funny as I did. She complained that she had to “eat” it.

The back of the bill was much too bluish in color. It felt like real money linen, though.

The front looked very authentic. I guess copy machines and kids got away with a minor theft-my guess. But, a one dollar bill?

When we got to J&J, they no longer wash trucks and motor homes. It started to rain. Who knows, maybe tomorrow we won’t need a car wash.