Enjoying Cigars in Italy
Author: David From http://www.musingsoverabarrel.com/ • Oct 24th, 2024Category: Blog Entries.Local
Trip:48
Nights: 167-169
We planned to be at Grayson Highlands State Park in SW Virginia this past weekend. Hurricane Helene had other ideas. When I checked Tuesday for alternate camping options in the state park system, I found 6 sites at Kiptopeke State Park, and nothing else. At least it made the decision easy. We had never been to Kiptopeke, so it was nice to check it off the list. Also, it's only 2 hours from home.
We had postcard perfect 75F and sunny weather all weekend. The park is right in the east coat flyway for migrating birds, and it's migration season. So our hastily reorganized itinerary was focused around birds. Also, we were meeting friends there, so campfire and beer time was also planned.
We arrived Thursday late afternoon, and got up Friday morning to go to the Cape Charles Nature Preserve, which features a 1/3 mile boardwalk to the Chesapeake Bay, and a man-made pond/wetland. Unfortunately the board walk runs right along the property line with a concrete manufacturing plant, and the noise from that place was annoying to both birds and people. We did manage to log about 20 species in the preserve, but almost all of them were around the pond, which was far enough from the plant that we could not hear it. Then we went back to the state park and followed a couple of trails where we again logged about 20 species. The hawk watch folks were there at the park, so we stopped by and saw a bunch of migrating hawks as they flew overhead headed south. They told us about seeing 18,000 migrating blue jays in 2 hours that morning, which explained why we had seen so many blue jays in our two birding walks that day. That evening we dined with our friends at Cape Charles Brewing, where the beer and the fish and chips were excellent.
On Saturday AM we had reservations to take a guided tour of Fisherman's Island, the southern most island in the Chesapeake Bay. As we met up at the Eastern Shore NWR for the tour, they told us the mosquitoes were particularly bad on the island right now. I brushed it off as hyperbole, but did add a second layer of bug spray. As we pulled into the parking area for the tour, the cars parking on the grass unleashed a cloud of mosquitoes unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was literally a black cloud of death hovering over the car. My wife noped out right there and decided she would be sitting in the car to 2 hours while we tramped around with the naturalists. Her friend decided to stick with her, and the husbands quickly decided this was a discretion is the better part of valor situation, and we told the rangers were were opting out and heading back to the NWR visitor center. Two folks there told us we probably made the right call. They pointed us to a local birding trail at the NWR that led to a WWII long range gun bunker. Even that walk was very, very buggy. I logged over 200+ blue jays on that 1 mile walk, and I definitely under-counted. After that we chilled at the camper for a while reading in the perfect weather, then headed into Cape Charles for ice cream. The women wanted to wander into some of the local shops, so the guys headed into the local Irish pub to wait for them. That evening we went out on a ranger led walk in search of owls. We failed to see any owls, but we did hear two eastern screech owls.
Sunday morning I headed back over to the hawk migration count while Michelle stayed back at the camper. I witnessed hundred and hundreds of Northern Flickers streaming south, as well as quite a few Sharp-Shinned Hawks and American Kestrels. It was a very eventful hour and I was bummed I had to leave to pack up the camper and head home.
The trip home was uneventful.
We attended the Lawrence concert at The Fillmore in Silver Spring, MD on Friday night. Lawrence was everything I expected. The opening act, Jukebox the Ghost, was a revelation. They've been around since 2008, and I had heard the band name, but somehow I managed to completely miss their music until this past weekend.
My loss, and in a big way. A 3-piece power pop band writing catchy, sing along chorus with intelligent lyrics and strong Queen influences is very much my vibe. Every recommendation algorithm on the Internet has failed me on this one.
Anyway, if you are also unfamiliar them, do yourself a favor and checkout the songs below.
Trip:47
Nights: 156-166
On Thursday, we went back to Audubon and spent 2.5 hours walking the trails to ID 21 bird species. It was a good day of birding. Then we went back, packed up the camper, and moved about 40 miles east to a new campground, Shady Knoll Campground in Brewster. It was wonderful and definitely a solid choice for your Cape Cod campground. Between the battery I didn't need and double paying for 3 nights, I'm way over budget for this trip. YOLO. After setting up camp, we went out for ice cream and had dinner at the camper.
We spent Friday in Sandwich, MA. We started at the Heritage Museums and Gardens. Our Lewis Ginter Gardens membership back home got us in for free. We started in the automotive museum, which is the car collection of JK Lilly, of the pharmaceutical company that I have ripped on several occasions on this website. I learned that electric vehicles existed way back in the 1910s. Imagine where they might be today had we not abandoned the idea for 100 years. The gardens were absolutely gorgeous, and we took a ride on a restored 1907 carousel. Also, there was an exhibit of impressionist art by New England artists. The docent there explained that to “get” impressionist art, you need to step back and get 10 or 20 feet away. And boom, I suddenly started “seeing” impressionist art. I think I made the guy's day when I thanked him for opening my eyes to impressionist art.
After the gardens, we went into downtown Sandwich and had sandwiches for lunch, because why would you have anything else in Sandwich, MA? Both of our sandwiches were fabulous. I guess I need to get to the UK, so I can have a sandwich in the original Sandwich.
After lunch, we hit the Sandwich Glass Museum, which covers the history of the Sandwich Glass Company, and contains a surprisingly extensive collection. Following the museum, we visited the Hoxie House, the oldest saltbox style home on the Cape. It was built in 1675 and is still about 90% original. The home is 100 years older than the country, and still safe to wander around in.
That evening, we cooked at the camper and played games. I finally won a game of gin rummy after losing every game on the trip so far. Then we extended our game library by learning backgammon.
Saturday was our last day of vacation. I wanted to make it a beach day, but 70F, cloudy, with gusty winds is not beach weather for us southerners. Instead, we went to the Monomoy National Wildlife Sanctuary, an important shore area for shorebird conservation efforts. A short 1-mile hike at low tide out into the tidal flats rewarded us with really great looks at a lot of birds, including several lifers. My shorebird ID skills suck, so I probably saw a much greater variety of gulls than I can take credit for. After birding, we got ice cream, again, and headed back to the camper to start to pack up and prepare for an early exit on Sunday. However, we had one last thing to do while in New England, dinner at a proper Irish Pub. O’Shea’s Old Inne delivered, with perfectly poured pints of Guinness for only $6, live Irish music, and a fabulous dinner of fish and chips. It was the perfect way to end our week.
The 2-day trip home, with an overnight stop at the same place we stopped at on the way up, was uneventful.