Cape Cod Diary - Day 2

Yesterday was a challenging day photographically. It was a low, overcast day with flat light and wind. Despite our intention for this to be a break from work and responsibilities at home, we both spent the morning reviewing materials for late-morning Zoom meetings. We did not leave the room until after one o'clock except to walk Conner, our canine companion.

One of our goals for this trip was to get in some longer walks in preparation for our 18-day walk across England next month. There are plenty of walks on the Cape, but given that it was already mid-afternoon, we were long for something a short drive away, more than a couple of miles long with challenging terrain—something I would regret later. Using the AllTrails app, I found the Bud Carter Loop, which was not quite as long as we hoped, 3.8 miles and rated moderately strenuous, so off we went.

I had some hope for opportunities to photograph, but those of you who live in the Northeast know how uniform and uninteresting the region's second —and third-growth forests are. The trail was more difficult than anticipated, with a great deal of elevation change and rock and tree root covered trails requiring careful attention to where you placed each step, and I was wearing new boots!

In anticipation of the wet weather on our walk in England, we each bought a pair of low-cut boots to wear in place of our regular hiking boots on shorter distance days. The new boots did not support my right ankle enough, which I have sprained several times over the years. By the end of the walk, the ankle made walking difficult, and I would not have been able to hike much further.

Then we went out to dinner with Therese's college friend—part of the plan from the trip's inception. It was a great dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant run by a couple of brothers from Peru. They had some interesting and delicious interpretations of Tex-Mex cuisine. I further enhanced my meal with a margarita, a beer and a shot of the best tequila I have ever had—all to moderate the pain in my ankle, I promise! I purposely avoided asking for the tequila brand to prevent future disasters.

By the time we got back to the room, and knowing how few photographs I had made, I checked my emails and decided to postpone writing this entry until this morning. I have decided that the limitations of using the iPad to write these entries are such that I will share them with a few close friends and then clean them up at home on my desktop before sharing them generally.

In the end there were only five images that met the criteria for sharing, and even those barely qualified:

1. An interesting twin-shadowed light fixture in our room.

2. An exhausted dog.

3. A shot of the harbor where Therese's friend keeps his lobster boat.

4. A shot of a Coke machine and stairs in the hotel complex where we are staying. (I am not sure why I took this photo or why I find it worth including)

5. A shot of the path to the beach from our hotel.

Some days are just like that; there are just a few opportunities to take a photograph, and most are bad or barely good.

At least the ankle feels better this morning, and I did not wake up with a hangover!