Welcome back! Last month, I stopped blogging to focus on the thirty-day, one-thousand-kilometre bicycle tour that included three islands, a detour to dodge Hurricane Lee, and no camping. Having the weight on our bicycles reduced by half (no tents or gear) was only one positive experience of the tour.

On the 1^st of September, we checked into the HI Hostel in Truro. It occupies a former Coast Guard station in the Cape Cod National Seashore. The HI Truro has a weird schedule: July through Labor Day. This is because the facility hosts two semesters of a university environmental studies program. As a result, upgrades and safety improvements installed long ago elsewhere are backlogged in Truro. Among the inconveniences of the hostel’s backlog was the lack of laundry facilities. We hung our hand wash outside and coped nicely. Others had to drive to town, but they had cars, so there’s that.

Over the next four days, we rode the backroads north of Wellfleet and south of North Truro. We rode to the PB Boulangerie for genuine French bread, cheese, and lunch. We checked out the new extension of the Cape Code Rail Trail (CCRT) on our way back. It goes no farther than it did last year, but Bittersweet Farm Road is paved through the Wellfleet Hollow State Campground to Old King Highway. This campground used to be private, but it became a state park this year. It’s all tent camping, but now costs seventy dollars for out-of-state residents like us. To return to the hostel, I used the cut back to US 6 on Spring Valley Road, whilst Cheryl took the Old King Highway north.

My strength grew as we rode the rolling hills of the Cape. The topography resembles the Virginia Peninsula, so I should be able to maintain my fitness after I settle into my new apartment.

Catherine, the manager, hosts her family at the hostel after the last guest checks out, and they use the family reunion to clean up and close the hostel for the season. Her cousins and in-laws were a pleasant, helpful crew.

On Tuesday, the 5^th, we checked out and bade the family goodbye.

The ride down the CCRT was uneventful, made pleasant by a bright sun, cool air, and a tailwind all the way. We had lunch at the Hot Chocolate Sparrow in the old depot in Orleans, much recommended by the locals.

When we left the bike trail, Google Maps sent us down Willow Street in Barnstable, which is a crowded, disheveled road I would not want to drive in a tank. We were stuck before we realized our mistake. We would have other opportunities to disregard Google Maps on this trip.

The manager at HI Hyannis this year was every bit as efficient and pleasant as Carol last year. Carmelo is from a Sicilian family near Messina. He speaks good Italian, which he studied in university, because his parents speak only Siculo. I had a room on the ground floor, with only one roommate. The women’s room upstairs was full, including Cheryl.

It felt good to be back in Hyannis. The excellence of the HI Hostel was only part of that.

Cheryl complained of poor shifting and chain slipping on her bicycle, so on the 6^th, we first went to Bike Zone on Barnstable Road, Ryan dropped everything to give Cheryl’s bike a tuneup. She had loose bolts, a misaligned derailleur and other things. He only charged me $90 and said he offered to buy the Lockhart trilogy, which I will ship to him after the tour (https://jthine.com/books).

We rode to Chatham in a headwind and got separated in town. I went to the Chatham Pier Fish Market whilst she rode to the lighthouse. She caught up with me at the pier. We disagreed on the best way to return but agreed to ride apart. I forget now why she rode on ahead, but I took route 28 (Main Street) all the way past the airport and beat her back. A 70-km ride on a windy, but sunny, pleasant day.

Shopping for groceries at the local fish markets has been a special feature of Cape Cod and will always be a favourite memory. After four trips to the Cape and dozens of fish stores, I must admit that none beat Mac’s Fish Market in Provincetown for quality, selection, and price. The others all cost so much that they could buy their fish retail from Mac’s and charge the same.

On Thursday, we rode west along the coast to Centerville and the Four Seas ice cream shop. We delighted in the shore, the homes, and the quiet roads. I did not earlier appreciate that Hyannis and Hyannis Port were two different villages, and that both are part of the Town of Barnstable. On the way back, we identified the Kennedy compound, surrounded by a high wall. So much glistening beach could not be ignored. We stopped at Kalmus Park Beach on the way back for the mandatory sit on our chairs in the sand.

A very enjoyable twenty kilometres on easy roads away from the main highways.

On Friday, the 8^th of September, we checked out and caught the Hyline ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. Having done this last year and the year before, we were familiar with the routine.

This time, we avoided the long run south to Edgartown and the terrible bike path south of the airport by cutting across Oak Bluffs, then taking the bike path through the Manuel F. Correllus State Forest north of the airport. The HI Hostel has a dirt trail from the bike path to the covered bicycle parking outside.

The staff from last year remembered us, so it was a little like coming back to family. The hostel was not crowded, and we quickly settled into the same room we had before.

By now, we had proven that staying three or four days at each place makes for a much more enjoyable experience than moving every morning. We rode to the familiar haunts: Larsen’s Fish Market in Menemsha, Aquinnah, South Beach, Grey Barn Farm and Morning Glory Farms. The Pie Chicks were still cranking out wonderful desserts, and, nearby, we added John’s Fish Market to our list of seafood purveyors.

We watched the weather news as Hurricane Lee took shape and slowly started heading north. It was unusual for a hurricane to form over the West Indies and not crash into the East Coast of the United States. Moving north out in the Atlantic, it made us worry where it would turn, or whether it would continue in a straight line for Cape Cod.

On the 11^th, we boarded the ferry for Quonset Point, Rhode Island. The seas were already moving, but Lee was still far away, projected to come too close to Cape Cod for comfort. That same day, we rode to Point Judith and took the ferry to Block Island.

The seas were high, but not dangerously so. As the ferry closed to the slip at New Shoreham, we could see the blackened front of the Harborside Inn, which suffered a dramatic fire the month before. From our window in the New Shoreham House Inn next door, we could see the yellow gear tearing out the back of the building, slowly demolishing the structure. The wind carried toxic dust towards our room, so we needed to keep the windows closed when the crew was working.

Block Island was on Cheryl’s bucket list, and we had missed going there in 2022. It was worth the wait. We rode out to the lighthouse at North Point and visited the museum at the Historical Society. The exhibits captured my interest. Unlike some other islands in the area, Block Island is on a single piece of granite, except for the isthmus that stretches out to North Point. The ride around the island to the Southeast Light (which has been moved away from the crumbling cliff three times) made for a challenging but enjoyable day. We had lunch twice at Persephone’s Kitchen. The fact that we returned to the establishment should signal our approval.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Lee continued to track north. Rhode Island Ferry, which was our ride back to Martha’s Vineyard, suspended service from Friday the 15^th through the weekend. I reckoned that the 800-km circle around the eye would extend as far west as Rhode Island, so we checked out early on the 14^th, and took the Block Island Ferry to Point Judith. From there we rode to Mystic, Connecticut and checked into the Inn at Mystic to wait out the storm. The hotel refunded the difference, and the RI ferry assured us that we could sail afterward. We shortened our reservation at the HI Martha’s Vineyard.

It was a good call. The hurricane made landfall at Halifax, Nova Scotia, but over the weekend, the storm conditions pounded the New England coast as far west as Westerly, Rhode Island.

While we waited for Lee, we rode to the Mystic Seaport Museum and enjoyed all the exhibits, most of which did not exist when I was there last, for example, the pedal-powered boat Tango that crossed the Atlantic and the changes to the whaler Charles Morgan to make her seaworthy.

Food at Sift Bakery, Bravo Bravo, and the Engine Room was filling and satisfying. However, we were happy to board the Northeast Regional on Monday to Wickford, and ride to the Rhode Island Ferry. We had dodged another storm.

Martha’s Vineyard is a gift that keeps on giving. We sat in the sand at South Beach, relaxed with the other guests at the hostel.

As we did last year, we took the ferry to Nantucket for a day trip on the 22^nd. In addition to the ride to Bartlett’s Farm, I rode out to the old hostel that HI sold during the pandemic. It was sad to see it empty, with the HI sign on the ground by the kitchen entrance.

No one seemed to know for sure what happened, but as far as I can piece together, the sale was a combination of several bad mistakes. HI should never have let the property go. The buyers may have been investors seeking to tear it down and flip it as a luxury property. However, the old lifesaving station is a historic property, and the out-of-town investors probably had underestimated New England stubbornness on such issues. So it sits, unsold and unused since 2021.

The HI MV Hostel was closing, so we boarded the ferry to Hyannis. This time, we played tourist more heavily, visiting the JFK Hyannis Museum and the Festival in the park across the street form the HI Hostel. I learned a side to John F. Kennedy that I never suspected: that he was an indifferent student, and got into a fair amount of trouble as a prankster. He only entered politics because his family expected him to assume the mantle of heir when his older brother Joe was killed in World War II. I came away imagining that my father, who was JFK’s classmate at Harvard, probably did not think much of him at 18 years of age. They could not have been two more different men at the time. They each changed dramatically in the crucible of the war and became closer by the time I came along.

The HI Hostel in Hyannis closed on the 25^th. We rode to Yarmouth, where Warmshowers host Andy took us in. He put us in his comfortable guest suite downstairs for two nights and taught us more than we ever knew about beekeeping and agriculture on Cape Cod, such as it is. He had been a second grade schoolteacher in nearby Bourne for decades and still missed the classroom.

I hated to leave him on the morning of the 27^th to return to Boston. Another lunch at the PD Boulangerie in Wellfleet and an easy ride to the ferry. As might be expected in the wake of a hurricane, we enjoyed pleasant weather and calm seas returning to Boston.

In Boston, we stayed at the HI Hostel again. I picked up Charlie tickets for us to get around without the bikes. We rode out to the JFK Presidential Library, which provided a perspective of the life and legacy of the 35^th president, picking up from what we learned in Hyannis.

On the 28^th, we took the bus out to Landry Bicycles new location on Bunker Hill, where they were saving a bike box for Cheryl. We packed her box the next day and organized our last day.

On Saturday, the 30^th of September, the Uber driver loaded Cheryl and her bicycle at four in the morning for the drive to Logan Airport. A final kiss and they were off. As last year, Cheryl’s bike got stuck in Montreal, but it joined her in Vancouver the next day.

I returned to the room for a nap and spent the rest of the day organizing my trip south. While we were touring, the leasing office emailed me that my new apartment would be ready to move in a month early. I had accepted a book translation in August that was due before the American Translators Association (ATA) Conference on 24 October, so suddenly all the plans for my move were falling in place quickly.

On Sunday, the 1^st of October, I rode to Boston’s South Station to catch the Northeast Regional Amtrak train to Old Saybrook. I rode to Old Lyme and stayed with my family while I repacked the car. The rest of the trip to Cape May and Williamsburg was in the car, and so ends the 2023 Bike Tour of the Capes and the Islands.

I will be busy moving into my new flat, settling down, and riding locally around the Virginia Peninsula. I don’t know where or when my next tour will be, but until I hit the road, please come to my author’s website for sea stories (memoirs) and new short stories every Saturday. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.

Smooth roads and tailwinds.

JT

© 2023, JT Hine