Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #127: Monday Rainday, Business Cards, Relax or Else, etc.

1. Monday Runday was Monday Rainday this week. I will take a little rain over 85 and humid, though every day of the week. It was fitting, though, that after just over 3 miles of circling an old school track in varying intensities of rain, the water stopped. My legs were tired, so I had no plans to run to reach my desired 3 miles. I just had to walk faster and endure the rain. One thing I have been very happy with is the durability of my headphones. I have had the same pair of big red over-ear headphones for going on 8 years. I know that someday they will break and I will need a new pair, but that wasn’t the case on this day. The rain didn’t short them out, although I didn’t risk it, and when the rain got steadier, I took my headphones off and hid them in my shirt. Years ago, at my peak as a runner, I used to enjoy running in all sorts of inclement weather. I’d run in rain, wind, snow, whatever. I guess since I ran all of those races and ran in all of the different types of weather, I have lost the desire to do so again.


2. One day this week, I was training an 87-year-old client. She was brought by her daughter-in-law and also had her 7-year-old granddaughter in tow. I have known them over the years at my work, as the daughter-in-law is a patient at my work. The 7-year-old I have known since she was a toddler, and I give her free rein to come into the gym if I am training someone and she is there. On this day, she was just hanging out while I trained her grandmother. This was after she and I failed to find a rogue cricket that had been calling the gym home. Anyway, I was training her grandmother, and so she grabbed a dry-erase marker and started scribbling on our green dry-erase board. When she left, I saw what she wrote, and it was so sweet and cute that I decided to leave it up there. I won’t erase it, but there’s no guarantee it won’t be erased. The fun coincidence was that her other grandmother was a client of mine in the afternoon. She practically melted when I told her who wrote that sweet message. I won’t leave you in suspense. I did take a photo of it to share.




3. No matter how many speaking events I do for my books, I will always feel blessed and humbled. I am always happy that people, the vast majority total strangers, take time out of their day to come out and hear me speak. That’s why I do my best to make each and every event the best I can possibly do. This week I had an event at the Eldredge Library in Chatham. Despite it being a sunny, 80-degree day in early summer, there were close to 30 people who chose to come inside, sit, and hear me speak about my latest book. In Their Footsteps: The Interesting People, Places, and Events of Cape Cod History features 40 stories from the Cape, all in chronological order. It was a fun event, and I have a few more this summer. Come and see me on July 15th at 5pm at the Snow Library in Orleans, or on July 23rd at 6pm at the Dennis Public Library. They will both be great shows, I promise!

Coming up next!

4. This week marked the 250th episode of the In My Footsteps Podcast, which I have hosted since November 2020. It’s amazing to think that the idea I had once, my brain had cleared after giving up alcohol, would have such staying power. It began as a way to distract myself from the alcohol demons I was fighting off. It was just me talking about all of the subjects I enjoyed. Slowly, it morphed into my favorite thing I do. I actually love the research, planning, recording, and yikes, even the editing of these podcasts. A podcast is easily the best way to keep in contact with your audience. You can speak about anything you want, and I bet you’d find people interested. A lot of it comes down to time. Doing all of the work surrounding the podcast can be time-consuming. If you’ve ever thought of starting your own podcast, all you need is some sort of computer, recording software, a decent microphone, a topic, and the desire to create it. My show is now strictly GenX nostalgia, but that covers a ton of ground. It ends up being nearly anything that has occurred between 1960 and 2005. You can see why I believe that I can easily do another 250 episodes. If you’ve never listened, now is your chance to start. They are fun and breezy at around an hour each. Thank you to those who have listened, and here’s to the next 250 episodes!



5. What do you do with outdated business cards? In 2009, I created my first business card. It featured Chatham Lighthouse and simply described me as an author. This was despite not having any published books or even a blog. For some reason, probably because it was a better deal, I had something like 500 cards printed. They lasted me until 2017. By that time, I had 4 published books, so a change was needed. I bring cards to my speaking events because they are a way that people can possibly keep connected, even if they don’t buy a book. The most recent cards I had made were when I had 6 published books. I now have 10. I am currently in the process of designing new cards that I should have for my next event. The outdated cards are something else. Around the time I redesigned my author cards in 2017, I also created personal trainer cards. I thought I might be able to drum up business for in-home training if I had my own business cards to hand out. I might have had 100 made, and in the 9 years since, have probably handed out less than 20. That means I have a boatload of cards with a photo of me from 2014 promoting something I have no desire to do again currently, that being in-home training. Oh, but wait, there’s more. I also created cards for my podcast. Again, about 100 made. The problem is, since I printed those, I changed not only my podcast logo, but what the show is about in general. So those are even more useless than the training cards. Yay. I have something like 150 useless business cards. I might keep one of each and then send the rest through the shredder at work.


6. Family get-togethers used to be a regular occurrence when I was younger. Now they have become fewer and further apart. Despite having a pretty busy schedule for the most part, I try my best to make time if a family get-together is on the horizon. This week I was able to do so. I went to have dinner with my cousin Patrick, who was still on Cape Cod from Las Vegas. We were at our cousins Richard and Dale’s house. They are our 2nd cousins. It was a wonderful and worthwhile experience. The weather was perfect, so we all ate outside. I sometimes forget that Dale used to run a restaurant on Cape Cod decades ago and is an accomplished cook. She just casually whipped up a Bearnaise sauce, Greek salad with dressing, and fresh whipped cream like it was no big deal. I was tired from a busy day, but didn’t want the dinner to end. At this point in my life, I do realize that you never know when another family moment like that might happen. Even when the sun was starting to go down after 8pm, I stood out in the driveway with Patrick and just talked about anything we could. It was a battle between fatigue and genuinely wanting to stay and chat as long as my body would hold up. I am grateful for these moments today, when, as a kid, they were so common that I felt almost as if I could miss a handful and not miss a thing. Patrick says he might come back to Cape Cod next year, but you never know what happens, so I am glad we got a lot of chances to spend time together during this visit. If you are lucky, you end up with many family members that you would rearrange your day just to spend some time with. I am that type of lucky.




7. Every time I go into a certain local supermarket, if a specific employee is working there, they always say hi to me. Not ‘hi’ like they’re just going through the motions, but saying it like they know me. I see this guy who has to be maybe a few years older than me, going about his job, but nine times out of ten, if I pass by him, he stops and specifically says hello to me. He even occasionally asks how things are going. I am sure he is probably just friendly, and he does the same thing with other customers, but I don’t have any other employee at any other supermarket do that. Part of me wants to stop and ask if we know each other, but I doubt it. He never says my name or asks anything more specific that might make me think we have a history. Believe me, it’s not a bad thing. I’d much rather have someone go out of their way to say hi to me than the alternative. I could only imagine having someone shoot me a dirty look every time I was in their store.


8. When I was at my peak as a runner, probably 2015-2016, I used to run sometimes as much as 40 to 50 miles per week. I definitely had my share of aches, pains, and injuries, yet somehow I kept going year after year. Once I injured my right hip while training for a Top 10 finish in a 5K in 2018, things changed. The injuries tipped the scales, and slowly but surely, my running career faded. I kept trying, but it was an exercise in futility. A few years ago, I made a concerted effort to return to running races. I at least wanted to do one, even if my time was nowhere near what I used to be able to do. I competed in three races between 2024 and 2025. The last race I did, my time was something like 6 minutes better than I expected. My confidence was sky high. Only a few weeks later, I severely sprained my ankle and everything shut down. I haven’t run a race since and haven’t run much at all. In the last month or so, I started wondering if there was anything that I had done when I was at my peak as a runner that I might be able to add back into my life that might help me start running more. Two things came to mind. One was making BCAAs (branched-chain amino acids) part of my daily life. They help muscles recover from strenuous exercise. The other was adding more glucosamine to my supplement regimen. It helps with the lubrication of joints and overall joint health. When I was running 40+ miles a week, I took more than the recommended dose of glucosamine regularly, and my knees and hips always responded well. I figured it was worth a shot to try that again. It takes two weeks or so to get the full effect of any vitamin or supplement into your body, so I didn’t attempt anything before then. I have noticed in the time since I started taking 1.5x the recommended amount of glucosamine that my joints, specifically my knees, feel better than they have in quite a while. This came to a head this weekend when I went for a long walk. It was like my legs were craving running, so I gave in. It wasn’t like it used to be. There were no stretches of sub-7-minute miles. But I did end up running much more than I have in months. There were even points where I thought I should stop and walk, but my body was on autopilot like the old days. I just kept running and focusing on my stride. Only time will tell if this is a significant development in my running life or if it’s my brain tricking my body until something else breaks. Either way, it felt good to be running on a beautiful summer morning on Cape Cod again.


9. It’s amazing how a little dose of the old runner’s high can make a route I’ve gone down hundreds of times feel fresh and new. A favorite running route leads along a river to the beach. It’s through a historic village and is in total just over three miles from my front door to the ocean’s edge. When I was a competitive runner, I’d enjoy the route but be more focused on my pace. Now I can stop and take it all in at times. Little coves, flowers, loads of walkers and riders, historic homes, and ample beachfront views. I figured, why not create a little video of this route? You never know who might get inspired to check it out themselves. You can drive it if you want, but walking or cycling is better.




10. In recent weeks, I have started to try to make Sundays into a day when I don’t do anything major. I make it a day where I sit around and relax. No exercise, no content work, just mindlessly recharging my battery. It’s not that I’ve lost the desire to work hard on my content or enjoy some sort of exercise, but I have found that if I never relax, I feel like I am in a constant state of fatigue to start my new work week. My brain automatically goes to projects I should be working on. I admit I will do some minor work, like posting links to projects on social media. However, more involved things have to be put on the back burner at least for a day. There have been long stretches over the last 5 or so years where I have felt in a state of perpetual burnout. My energy levels crater, and I get agitated at that. A month or so ago, I decided to force myself to sit and relax all Sunday. I did this by binging several episodes of the Netflix series Dark. I felt for so long that if I wasn’t constantly working on something, I’d fall behind whatever imaginary metric there was to show my progress in creative fields. Now I have come to realize that if I don’t take at least a day to fully relax and recharge, it could lead to longer stretches where I just can’t keep that pace up physically or mentally. Not just for me but for anyone, make sure you take some time, some real time, to relax and recharge. It will do you a world of good.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #110: Blizzard of 2026, Power Outages, Odd Captions, etc.

1. The Blizzard of 2026 came roaring in late Sunday night. By sunrise on Monday morning, we had power flash off several times, but luckily, it always came right back on. The funny thing was that I sleep with a white noise machine on, as I am a very light sleeper. Each time the power went off, the machine stopped, and I immediately woke up. The machine has several different sounds to sleep to. The default is running water. So when the power came back on, I was greeted with running water sounds. I would switch it back to the white noise only for the power to go back out a few minutes later. After doing this two or three times, I gave up and left the running water noise on. The white noise machine became my canary in the coal mine during the day. Since I didn’t need any lights on, I knew if that machine stopped, we had lost power.


2. Fittingly, during the day of the blizzard, I got nostalgic and watched a video I had shot with my camcorder of a blizzard we had on Cape Cod in 1996. That one was in the first week of January during my senior year of high school. We had 21” of snow from that. It was wild to see my siblings and me out shoveling during the peak of the storm near 11pm. We also scaled our roof with a ladder. Mind you, I was the oldest at 18, the rest were younger. It was a different time 30 years ago. While watching my brother and me driving around town during the storm in my mother’s blue station wagon, I noticed a few things. First, I was way more reckless with driving, doing fish tails, donuts, and getting stuck in snow banks. Second and perhaps more shocking was how much of an accent I had back then. Not sure if it was a conscious effort to speak without the Cape Cod accent once I started doing author events, or if it’s just something you can lose over time. It’s amazing how fast 30 years can go and not really feel like all that long.


3. One of the silver linings about the blizzard was that I could use shoveling the snow as a workout. I set my Fitbit up and got to shoveling during the height of the storm, around 12:30pm on Monday. It was hard-packed, cement snow, probably over a foot by that time. Despite it being heavy, it was not terrible to shovel since each scoop stayed on the shovel. I shoveled for about 70 minutes and clocked in roughly 715 calories burned. I felt really good about that and was looking forward to a hot shower and a bit of rest while the storm raged on. That was not to be though, as once finished shoveling, I found out that the power had gone out while I was outside. No shower, no hot food, just sitting in silence, slowly draining my phone’s battery. I guess I was foolish to think that power would stay on during one of the biggest storms in recent memory.



4. In total, it was close to 75% of Cape Cod that lost power during the blizzard. I believe at one point, the entire Outer Cape (Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown) was without power. I always say that at my age, I am old enough to remember growing up without the technology of the internet and smartphones. It was not some sort of a challenge, but we ended up there anyway. Unsure of how long power would be out, I tried to prolong the life of my devices as long as possible. I had a portable battery called PoweRocks that my mother had given me years ago. Smartly, I charged it before the storm. I used that to prop up my phone’s battery. Once it died, I plugged it into my laptop and drained that battery to slowly recharge the PoweRocks and my phone. When all else failed, I’d go sit in my running car with my phone plugged in. Surprisingly, that didn’t give me as much of a charge as I’d hoped. It was a game of musical chairs with my car, phone, laptop, and portable charger as I tried to keep some sort of connection to the outside world while the blizzard raged and then crews worked to restore power.


5. While out getting the lay of the land the morning after the blizzard, I had a fun adventure with my youngest niece, Sylvie, who lives nearby. I was out filming a video where I stood in a fresh snow drift to show people how deep the snow was when she spotted me. She was able to convince me to go for a walk with her mother and their dog through their neighborhood. It doesn’t take much convincing, though. My mother typically says Sylvie is my boss and can get me to do pretty much anything. The neighborhood we walked in wasn’t plowed at all, which made walking a chore. It was a fun time though, as Sylvie enjoyed diving into the snow and asking me to come and rescue her from it. Eventually, I offered to give her a piggyback ride back to her house. By this point, I had helped do a 2nd shoveling of the driveway on an empty stomach, plus done the walk, so I was tired. If I could have gone back to bed at 8:30am, I would have. Sylvie wanted me to hang out at her house, but I wanted to go home and collapse into a chair. She’s very convincing, but I had to say no. It’s hard because she’s smart and remembers everything. If I said I’d be back later, she’d hold me to it. I had to actually go home and relax, otherwise she’d call me out on it.



6. In total, we got somewhere in the neighborhood of 18-20” of snow on the Mid-Cape. The jackpot was a stretch from Plymouth, MA, down into southwestern Rhode Island. There, they got something like 3 feet of snow. The Blizzard of 2026 was breaking records set by the legendary Blizzard of ‘78. We had wind gusts of 80mph on Nantucket. I think Cape Cod got spared in terms of major beach erosion since the storm’s peak was during low tides. That being said, the videos of the Scituate shore were awful as they typically are during big storms. I have seen countless such videos of huge waves crashing into the sea walls and spraying into the air as high as the roofs of 3-story houses. I love Scituate, but it has to be a blessing and a curse for those who live there. You get beautiful scenery and shorelines, but also the threat of major beach erosion and storm surge damage. As of writing this entry, I believe that more than half of Cape Cod is still without power. It came back on where I live in the middle of the night after about 40 hours of darkness and cold. As I mentioned above, my white noise machine was my canary in the coal mine. I heard it turn on and checked the time. I hope that everyone else gets their power back soon. It’s no fun sleeping in a 55-degree room.


7. Once fully shoveled out, and once I felt the roads were passable enough, I took a little ride. I needed to try to charge my phone, so I figured rather than sitting in the driveway in my car, I’d go see how the area looked. It was an adventure for sure. The roads ranged from passable to totally unplowed. I drive a sedan, so my adventurous side is determined by whether my car can make it. I was more than willing to walk through deep snow to get cool photos and videos. The problem was finding a place where I could park. There was also the issue of downed trees and power lines. There were a few detours caused by trees across the road. I didn’t dare try to get any footage while driving, otherwise I’d end up in one of those ‘idiot driver’ fail videos. In the end, I went and grabbed some food at a supermarket that was open and called it a day. With no power for several days at my work, it left a lot of room for further adventures later in the week.


8. The difference in when certain areas of Cape Cod got their power back meant that, despite getting power back at 4am Wednesday morning, a lot of other places did not have it back. One such place was my work. I ended up with an entire week off from work. It wasn’t planned, and I couldn’t really enjoy it since half of it was under storm conditions. With half of the Cape not having power, all I could really do was sit around and relax, which is not my favorite activity. It’s amazing the luck of the draw where a select few never lost power during the blizzard, others (like me) got it back in a day and a half, while more had to wait 4 or 5 days. There was really no rhyme or reason, but it made me feel like I needed to apologize to those who had longer durations without power, like I had somehow paid off the power gods to give ours back sooner. You’d see a handful of people on social media saying it ‘must be nice’ to have power when, in reality, it was totally random.


9. After a long and cold winter, it’s amazing how good 45 degrees feels. I immediately grabbed my fall jacket to head out into the sun. As bad as the blizzard was early in the week, having several days of temperatures in the 40s did wonders for melting the snow. It also did wonders for the psyche of a lot of us in New England. It honestly has felt at times like winter was never going to end, but now hopefully (knocks wood) the worst is behind us. Those who live in warmer climates wouldn’t understand when we get a 40+ degree day and drive with our windows down and start drinking iced coffee. Yes, we’re kind of crazy, but in a charming way.


10. With my content being more visible on Instagram and TikTok in the last month or so, I am starting to try to put a little more effort into my videos. This means taking a few b-roll shots, doing camera cuts, and trying to turn a 90-second to 2-minute video into a short film. Sure, it might not make much of a difference in the long run, but it actually is fun and gets me some practice in a director’s sense and a layout sense. This video of the damage at Town Neck Beach in Sandwich is an example of what I’m talking about.



11. As I have said many times, when it comes to photography, I practice something called dedication to the craft. That is the idea of getting the photo you want, even if it means disregarding your own safety. Obviously, my risks are calculated, but they are still risks for a good shot. The older I get, the more my practical side starts to take over. I have always seen a few moves ahead in life, and now I have found that seeing those moves can stop me from doing something stupid. For example, and obviously you knew there was an example, this week I went shooting down in Chatham. While at one location, I noticed in the distance on a deserted stretch of beach, there was a grounded boat. I immediately knew I needed to get closer to it. I went to a place called the Monomoy Wildlife Refuge. It’s way out in the boonies of Chatham. From there, I could see the boat and knew a route I could take to get pretty close to it. Sadly, the last few years have seen this location decimated by erosion to the point where there is no beach access from it anymore. Well, technically. Here is the seeing moves ahead part. There is an overlook where you can see the ocean, but the stairs that used to lead you to the beach have been removed. If you walk to the edge of the bluffs, it’s probably a 10-15-foot drop down to the beach below. A few years ago, I’d have jumped off the bluffs, walked the beach, and gotten some sick photos and videos of the boat. Today though, the idea of jumping in the snow and sand and then trying to figure out my way back to the parking lot, all while hoping nobody who lived on the bluffs saw me and decided to make a scene, was all too much. If it hadn’t been winter, I’d have walked to an access trail a half-mile away, but the temperature and time of day wouldn’t allow it. I had to settle for a video from a distance, lame.


12. I like putting captions with all of my videos on social media. It helps people who might not be in a place where they can play a video with sound. As you’d expect with AI deciphering my words, there are lots of inaccuracies, specifically with proper names and locations. This week, I shot a video at the Cape Cod Canal. While I was there, a helicopter flew overhead, and I got a fun shot of it. When I went to add captions to the video, I noticed odd words appearing. While uploading it to TikTok, I noticed a few Arabic words in my captions. Then, when I put the same video up on Instagram, I noticed the phrase ‘oh my god’ was randomly thrown in. It took me a moment to realize that the AI was trying to make words out of the helicopter sounds. So apparently TikTok thinks helicopter noises sound like Arabic, and IG thinks they sound like someone crying out, ‘oh my god.’ Both random and funny at the same time. I did momentarily debate leaving those captions in, but ultimately took them out.


13. I got lucky and experienced a classic Cape Cod sunset on the tidal flats this weekend. All of the ice had melted away, and it looked like it does in the summer. I had a great idea. I would shoot a killer time-lapse video of both the tide rolling in and the sun setting. I used my selfie stick, which is also a tripod, and set my phone up probably 6-7 feet away from the water’s edge and let it roll. I had hoped that the water wouldn’t come in too far before the sun had dipped below the horizon. I watched the video recording, and the water rolled in. It started lapping at the tripod, but I held firm. It began trickling past the tripod, but I wouldn’t relent. I held out as long as I could, but once the water was 5 feet past the tripod holding my phone, I had to rescue it. If I had waited a few moments later, I don’t know if the water eventually would have knocked my phone over. The video was amazing, though. Probably 5 minutes of filming for less than 30 seconds of time-lapse.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #66: Dream Chasing, Found Money, Lost Nerve, etc.

1. There are loads of famous quotes about chasing your dreams. The gist of them all is to keep pursuing them if you truly want them. My dream has been the same, to become successful in a field using creativity rather than simple manual labor. It has evolved over time. Writing, content creation, and photography are all a part of my dream. Now it has evolved into acting, whether on camera or voice acting. To do it though, you need to audition or at least apply for potential roles. Maybe you get the part, maybe you don’t, but you definitely won’t if you don’t apply. It’s better to apply, get a part, and have to figure out how to make it fit into your schedule, rather than worry about how it will fit into your schedule and not even bothering to try.

2. It is mating season for animals. Knowing this made a lot of things from the past weekend make sense. On a run I came across 3 turkeys standing in the road. The male had his tail feathers spread wide while a pair of females gawked at him. The funniest one though was running past an osprey nest on a pole. I found it odd that 1 osprey was seated in the nest and another flew down and literally landed standing on the other’s back. I thought it was weird until someone at work mentioned it being mating season. Suddenly, that awkward landing by the osprey made sense. They just needed some romantic music.

3. The older I get, the more I find myself living by the credo ‘say yes to whatever and figure it out later.’ Meaning if an opportunity you want comes along you accept it and figure out how to do it, or fit it into your life later. Being that I am trying to get some more acting gigs I have recently put that credo into action. I auditioned for a role in a movie set to film beginning at the end of May. If I get it I might need to put in for serious time off from work on relatively short notice. However, you never know what opportunity might be the one that changes your life. It’s a risk that needs to be taken sometimes. We’ll see what the results are.

4. Creating an audition tape is a unique experience. For the film I mentioned above I had to give some basic info about myself and also answer questions specific to the role I am trying out for. I was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly the recording went. Granted, I was able to edit out some long pauses and looking at the questions on my phone but that’s beside the point. Recording tons of videos and podcasts along with doing lots of speaking events, has made public speaking, or at least describing myself to strangers, much easier. I’m not saying that it means I nailed the audition and should get a call back soon. I’m just saying that I’m a way better public speaker than the shy, nervous, introvert I was growing up could ever have imagined.

5. I was at the grocery store one night this week. It was a standard trip until I got the self-checkout. It was then that I realized I’d left my wallet in the car. Part of me wished that I had actually loaded my debit card into my Apple Wallet after months of deliberating. Sadly I had to alert an employee. I had to let them know I was running to my car to get my wallet and that I wasn’t just ditching a full bag of groceries like some loser. After I paid and was leaving I thanked the employee for understanding. Their reaction was one that felt like they wanted to laugh but didn’t want to get in trouble. I still haven’t set up my Apple Wallet by the way.

6. In more money fun I mentioned a while back that I paid off a credit card I had maxed out years ago. I got it when I was desperate for extra money and it has an extraordinary interest rate. I wanted to keep the account open as it’s supposedly better for your credit score. However after getting slapped with a $99 annual fee I decided enough was enough. I have no intention of ever using the card again so I reached out to cancel the account permanently. I’m all for keeping my credit score up but I’m not willing to just throw money at this company like an idiot. I did that for years just paying the card off.

7. Located within sight of the parking lot at Chatham’s Lighthouse Beach is a rustic shack that you’d think has been there forever. The Occupy Chatham shack is 1/3 mile hike across the sand. It’s only been there since 2015. It’s a fun photo op, especially when the weather is good. I went this week with my buddy Steve and even though it was cloudy there were still great photos to be had. One photo op I passed on though was the litany of dead eiders on the way out. We counted 3 of the black and white ducks dead on the walk. I’m sure if we’d have kept walking we’d have found more but that was enough sadness for a quick trip.

8. From the ‘Almost Disaster’ files: I switched car insurance a few months ago. I ended up saving about $400 a year on the new policy. Afterward, I had gotten several letters from the former insurance company. I piled them and some other junk mail on a shelf. The time came when I needed to get rid of all of that junk. I started tearing up all of the letters. The ones from my old insurance company were all about life insurance, or so I thought. So I’m ripping these all to shreds but the final one I had a little trouble tearing. Luckily I pulled the contents out to see what it was and to my surprise there was a reimbursement check. It wasn’t a ton, like $50, but still I almost ripped up free money.

9. I typically don’t have any trouble sleeping. However every so often, maybe once every other month, I have a night where I wake up and am instantly wide awake. This happened this week and it was even less fun because I had an early wake up for a photo trip I was going on. The irony was that my mind was wide awake as I started seeing the potential photos I could take the next morning. It took a good hour but finally I did fall back to sleep.

10. Speaking of that photo trip. I joined my buddy Steve as he went to begin opening up his family’s cottage on the Gurnet which is a private seaside peninsula that is in the towns of Duxbury and Plymouth in Massachusetts. I love going there because there is a historic lighthouse that I can get up close photos of. On this trip there was a man and a woman doing some sort of cleaning inside the lighthouse. The front door was open and everything. I hung around a bit trying to be out of the way but polite. My thought was if I was there long enough and was friendly, they might ask me if I wanted to check out the interior of the lighthouse. Sadly this didn’t happen, but the photos were still great.

11. A favorite part of these Gurnet trips is stopping at Gunther Tooties for a tasty bagel and flavored cream cheese. There are six locations in the southeastern part of Massachusetts. I lean toward the sweet flavors like cinnamon, French toast, and honey cream cheese. They do, however, have more savory offerings. If you enjoy bagels and cream cheese, definitely check them out.

12. From the ‘Of Course’ files. Steve and I went on a quest to get out to this recreation area in a village named Humarock. It’s a part of Scituate. Anyway, there is a cool tower out there that I believe is one of the observation towers built during World War II. It seemed like everything was good to go as we followed the GPS out to the recreation area. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. Yes, there was a recreation area. The problem was that it was on Air Force property and gated. No chance of sneaking in for a few photos of the tower unless I wanted to be immediately cuffed and hauled away.

13. We headed out to get some photos of the newly renovated Scituate Lighthouse. Many years ago I had walked to the end of the nearby breakwater, scaled a tower, and taken a great panoramic photo of the lighthouse and coastline. My mind was set on doing that again. We walked all the way out and I got to the tower. About halfway up the ladder, I froze. Suddenly, the tower felt like it was 100 feet tall. The howling wind didn’t help my confidence. I climbed down and then felt ashamed so I started climbing again. A second time I got halfway up and froze. I don’t know if my brain sensed trouble could be ahead if I kept climbing but this time I climbed back down and gave up. Better to get a photo safely from the ground than get blown off the top of the tower. 

In My Footsteps Podcast: Episode 5 - A Lost Cape Cod Lighthouse; Chatham MA, New Year's Rockin' Eve, This Week In History (12-31-2020)

 

In Their Footsteps: Cape Cod History - Samuel de Champlain and Port Fortune

     “What’s in a name?”

     It is part of a famous quote from legendary scribe William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Every person, place, and thing has a name that becomes synonymous with them. In most cases when something is named that name remains unchanged through time. Cape Cod gained its name in 1602 through English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold. It has remained unchanged for more than four centuries.

    Village names on the Cape came as communities were established, mostly based upon English towns. Sandwich, Yarmouth, Falmouth, and others were named for places across the Atlantic.

     It is a rarity that a town changes its name once it has been decided upon. There have been some examples like when Hot Springs, New Mexico became Truth Or Consequences after the game show, or when Clark, Texas became DISH after the satellite television company. One change of interest locally came in 1997 when the town of Gay Head on Martha’s Vineyard was changed to Aquinnah. Another name change was bandied about on Cape Cod that not many may be aware of. It was a name given to a Cape Cod town by another famed explorer. This is the story of that explorer and his journey to the Cape.

     Only a few years after Gosnold explored and gave Cape Cod its name another world famous explorer found his way to the peninsula. French explorer Samuel de Champlain made at least 21 voyages across the Atlantic Ocean to North America beginning in 1599. His first voyage was to check on the colonies in the West Indies (Caribbean) for the Spanish government. His second trip in 1603 led Champlain to present-day Nova Scotia and the St. Lawrence River in Canada. It was his third New World trip in 1604 which led him to Cape Cod for the first time.

    After beginning the exploration of North America once again in Nova Scotia the expedition of three ships, including Champlain’s ship Don de Dieu, began venturing south. In the spring of 1605, after enduring a harsh Canadian winter, Champlain and the rest of the expedition headed south, mapping the coastlines of Maine, New Hampshire, and into Massachusetts. The venture was to find a suitable location for a French settlement.

     The initial contact with Cape Cod for Champlain occurred as he landed in present-day Eastham. He likely sailed into Pleasant Bay and could have landed between the location of the Salt Pond Visitors Center and Fort Hill. The stay was very brief and Champlain’s crew returned north. Ultimately a settlement was established near the mouth of the Annapolis River in Nova Scotia at the end of the summer of 1605. It was named Port Royal and became the home base for further exploration of the North American coastline.

    A voyage south to Florida in the spring of 1606 failed due to weather and lack of supplies among other things. The next trip returned Champlain to Cape Cod in the fall of 1606. It was this time that he became the first European to visit what is today known as Chatham.

Champlain's Map of Stage Harbor with Harding's Beach Point along the bottom.

     In October 1606 Champlain first returned to Eastham and was greeted in a friendly manner from the Natives. After a short visit they continued south and were nearly wrecked on the shoals surrounding Monomoy Island. Eventually they entered present-day Stage Harbor and docked. Champlain would sketch out the area and even dubbed it initially ‘Port Fortune.’

     The crew stayed on shore with the Natives for more than a week. It was initially a pleasant stay but eventually turned hostile as the Natives felt the French had overstayed their welcome. An early morning attack by the Natives on their last day at Port Fortune left four of Champlain’s crew dead and the rest of them lucky to escape the bloody skirmish. Later on Port Fortune would be referred to as ‘Misfortune’ due to this event.

Present-day view of Stage Harbor with Harding's Beach Point along the bottom. (Google Maps)

     The expedition continued on southwesterly until they gained sight of Martha’s Vineyard on October 20, 1606, although Champlain was not certain if this was part of mainland Cape Cod. A strong storm forced the ship to turn back and reluctantly dock in Stage Harbor again. It was here while awaiting favorable winds that Champlain’s crew enacted revenge on the Natives killing several of them while under the guise of friendship. 

     Once the weather was up to par the expedition left Stage Harbor and, except for a brief return to Eastham on the way back to Port Royal, would never see Cape Cod again. Champlain became the first European to visit Chatham and no other would step foot there for fifty years until William Nickerson arrived in 1656.

    Samuel de Champlain died on Christmas Day in 1635 in Quebec City. He had returned there in 1633 and acted as governor until his death. His legacy was as the ‘Father of New France’ for his cartography of much of the eastern coast from Nova Scotia to Cape Cod and his establishment of Quebec in Canada. However Champlain’s connection to Cape Cod came back to the forefront three centuries after his death.

     In 1937 the Port Fortune Society was formed with the intention of changing the name of Chatham to the name originally given to the land by Champlain upon his arrival. The idea for the change came from the minds of two people. There was Chatham artist Harold Dunbar who thought the name change would be a way to honor Champlain as the ‘grandfather of our country.’ The second was retired Professor Carol Wight of Johns Hopkins University who did not see the appeal in honoring William Pitt the English Earl of Chatham who never stepped foot on the land.

     Their cause was championed by Ben Adams Buck who was president of the Port Fortune Society, a lifelong Chatham resident and Cape Cod historian. In April 1937 the group’s intentions were declared in a long newspaper article. Though initially making waves with its declaration nothing came of the name change attempt and the Port Fortune Society became a mere footnote in Cape Cod history.

The Champlain stone marker near Stage Harbor.

     In the end the Port Fortune name did end up being a part of Chatham. There was the seasonal restaurant and lodge on the corner of Main Street and Hallett Street called The Port Fortune. It started as a restaurant in the 1930’s and later became a bed and breakfast called the Port Fortune Inn. This existed until just after the turn of the 21^st century when it became a private home.

Samuel de Champlain’s connection to the Cape today still remains.

     Though unsuccessful at changing the name of Chatham to Port Fortune Carol Wight succeeded in having a stone marker commemorating Champlain’s Cape Cod visits created near Stage Harbor in the 1930’s. Champlain’s detailed map of Stage Harbor can still be viewed and some fixtures of Chatham’s landscape like Mill Pond and Oyster Pond can be made out in the sketches.

---------------------------------------

My first eBook in 10 years, In Their Footsteps, featuring the interesting stories of Cape Cod's history, is on sale at Amazon.com. 

View my previous blog posts: In Their Footsteps: Cape Cod History - The Great Colonial Hurricane

In Their Footsteps: Cape Cod History - The Cape's Conservation Story

Photo Prints available here: Smug Mug.com

Be sure to check out my website: Christopher Setterlund.com

Cape Cod's Most Beautiful Routes to Explore

2020 is currently perhaps the craziest time any of us will see in our lifetimes.  Quarantine is the norm and social distancing highly recommended.  However it is also recommended that people get outside somehow and get a daily dose of Vitamin D.  Those of us lucky enough to live on Cape Cod are close to endless possibilities to see beautiful sites in the sun.

This article will help you stay active and see the sites of one of the most unique places on earth while also keeping with the current new normal of the world during the pandemic.  You can choose to run, walk, bicycle, there is no right or wrong as long as you are moving. These are in no particular order but they all give you a glimpse into the heart and soul of Cape Cod.

Cape Cod Canal: This is an easy, paved bike trail which runs along the Canal and underneath two of the three bridges. Parking is free at the Railroad Bridge. The entirety of the bike path is between seven and eight miles. It is roughly five miles to make it from the railroad bridge to the Sagamore Bridge, ten miles round trip.

Looking toward the railroad bridge along the Cape Cod Canal.

Chatham Shore: For the active Cape Codder the shore route is a way to see many highlights of the quaint fishing village of Chatham. Parking is free on Cow Yard Lane which faces the North Beach Island cottages. The route takes you along Shore Rd. and past the legendary Chatham Bars Inn and Hydrangea House. Along the way you pass Chatham Lighthouse and head out to Morris Island. The route is between six and seven miles round trip.

Chatham Lighthouse

Province Lands Bike Trail: Nestled in the dunes of Provincetown this is an authentic look at untouched Cape Cod beauty. The bike trail follows the dunes rather than cutting through them. The loop from Herring Cove Beach, past Race Point Beach and back is filled with an almost infinite number of breathtaking sites. The route is anywhere from 5 ½ to 7 miles depending on how far you want to go.

A view of the ocean from the Province Lands Bike Trail

Osterville: Keeping with coastal scenery this route brings you from one of the most popular Cape beaches, Craigville, into rural Osterville. It begins at Craigville Beach and carries you away from the ocean to South Main Street.  Near Bumps River, you turn onto Starboard Lane with its numerous beautiful homes and secluded feel and follow to where it meets Old Mill Rd. This route is 6 miles round trip.

Yarmouth Beaches: Beautiful homes along the water? Check. Historic sites? Check. Several scenic beaches? Check. All that’s left is to take to the road to enjoy them all. Pleasant Street is where the route begins; you pass by beautiful homes along a shady portion of River Street before passing by the historic Judah Baker Windmill. After this you are just seconds from the ocean meaning anytime along the route you can cool off in the saltwater. Once you see Red Jacket Resort it’s time to turn and go back. This route is 6 miles.

The jetty at Smuggler's Beach

Cape Cod Rail Trail: Stretching from Dennis all the way into Wellfleet, with an offshoot into Chatham, the Rail Trail is nearly 30 miles of paved, scenic majesty. It is a bit much to do all of those miles but there is a great section that gives one a good idea of what the trail is all about. Starting at Headwaters Drive off of Rt. 124 in Harwich you head east across a cranberry bog, past several ponds and to the entrance of Nickerson State Park. This route is 12 miles round trip.

Sunset at Seymour Pond in Harwich

Nickerson State Park: Loaded with kettle ponds and campsites Nickerson is a virtual haven for active Cape Codders. The bike trail weaves along the main park roads but also has many offshoot trails that lead you into some of the park’s nooks and crannies. The main attractions of Nickerson are never more than a quick ride or run from the trail. The bike trail is 8 miles total.

Big Cliff Pond at Nickerson

Falmouth & Woods Hole: One of the science community's most well known spots coupled with sweeping panoramic views of Martha’s Vineyard make this a worthwhile jaunt. The Shining Sea Bikeway intersects at a few places but the route leads from Surf Drive Beach along the shore past Nobska Lighthouse and down to Water Street in Woods Hole. This route is 9 miles round trip.

Nobska Lighthouse

Coast To Coast: Going from coast to coast on the Cape can be long, like from Sandwich south to Mashpee, or short like near Pilgrim Lake in Truro. Going from Cape Cod Bay to the Atlantic Ocean in Wellfleet is close but just far enough to make it worthwhile. Parking at Mayo Beach is best. The route takes you on Long Pond Road over Rt. 6 and down to The Beachcomber on Cahoon Hollow Beach, then head back. This route is 7 miles round trip.

Mayo Beach

The Least Known Island: In Mashpee there is Monomoscoy Island tucked away from the ocean along Waquoit Bay. South Cape Beach State Park is a perfect starting point for this trip. Head away from the water and down Red Brook Road and down across a causeway. The island is a mix of old cottages and newer lush homes. This finger of land has tremendous water views on either side as you get toward the tip. It is a hidden gem that is better appreciated outside of a car. This route is 11 miles round trip.

The entrance to Monomoscoy

---------------------------------------------------------------

My 5th book, Cape Cod Nights, is on sale at Amazon.com and through Arcadia Publishing



View my previous blog posts: In Their Footsteps: Cape Cod History - Deacon John Doane

In Their Footsteps: Cape Cod History - The Man Behind the Long Point Cross                         

Photo Prints available here: Smug Mug.com

Be sure to check out my website: Christopher Setterlund.com

Travel Tuesday #4 - Chatham Lighthouse Beach Sunrise

     The fourth installment of Travel Tuesday gets up early in the morning to capture the sunrise in Chatham. The spot chosen here is Lighthouse Beach due to Chatham Lighthouse standing stoically across the parking lot.

     This photo was taken in September 2014 at that time of year the sunrise in Chatham ranges between 6:06am at the beginning of the month to 6:36am at the end of the month. Though this was from September the sunrise is exquisite from Lighthouse Beach all year round. The best part of this photo is that you can stay in your car and wait in the warmth for nature to do its job. If it is warmer you can walk out on to the beach and get similar spectacular shots. Lighthouse Beach itself was partially a creation of the break in North Beach in 1987. A powerful Nor’easter broke through the barrier beach in January 1987 and by 1994 South Beach had curled in and attached to the mainland leading to a new stretch of beach lying in front of the lighthouse and parking lot.

     The one caveat to this photo is the fishing boat passing underneath the rising sun. Just over a mile north of Lighthouse Beach is the Chatham Fish Pier where the countless boats depart and return almost daily. It is mainly just a matter of timing to capture a departing boat passing under the rising sun. You could have several chances to replicate this photo as boats during the morning stream past the beach. As of 2017 it was noted that 87 fishing boats used the Chatham Fish Pier so there is ample opportunity.

Find Prints of This Photo at Smug Mug: Christopher Setterlund - Smug Mug/Cape Cod Sunrises and Sunsets

Where to go to take this photo: Lighthouse Beach is located on Main Street in Chatham. There is a small parking area directly in front of Chatham Light.

In My Footsteps: My Cape Cod Roots

            I am a 12th generation Cape Codder, my roots are that of the Doane family.  Deacon John Doane, one of the founders of the town of Eastham is my paternal 9th-great grandfather.  My maternal grandfather ran his own successful business, Sullivan's Donut Shop in Hyannis for two decades.  My family is deeply rooted in the history of the Cape, although throughout my childhood I don't think I appreciated where I lived.  Looking back now though I realize how specials those times and the days since have been.

             I feel that I was born at the absolute best time to appreciate Cape Cod for all that it is and was.  I am old enough to remember things ‘the way they used to be’, yet young enough to enjoy the way things are.  For those who are dying to know, I was born in 1977.  I straddle the line between generations that gives me insight into two worlds.  I am of the age where I was able to see and experience a little bit of Olde Cape Cod and watch as my home changed and adapted with the times.

              During my childhood landline telephones and phone booths were common.  I remember waiting for friends to call, and actually having to remember people’s phone numbers.  Yet as an adult I love the convenience and technology of smartphones.  I do not believe I could recite anybody’s phone number today.  However I could still rattle off my old home phone number, my Nana’s number, and a few friends from middle school as well.

            Throughout my childhood I would be tossed outside by my mother during summer to go off and play with my friends, only coming home when it was almost dark.  I do not believe we ever feared being abducted, though I am sure the bad people were not something invented in the last twenty years.  The Cape seemed more innocent though I am sure that it was not.

            I was born at a time when vinyl albums were mainstays.  I had a collection as a seven-year old that might shock people today with artists like Ratt, Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot, Van Halen, and Motley Crue lining my shelves.  Of course I had the first pressing of Michael Jackson’s Thriller as well and used to play it loudly out of my window on my Fisher-Price record player so all of the neighborhood kids could dance in the yard.  I had young hip parents which influenced my style growing up.  However as much as I loved making cassette mixtapes off of stations like Cape 104 and 96.3 The Rose I can honestly say I prefer MP3’s and iTunes to Maxell and Memorex.

            I am old enough to remember walking, or driving, to the video store to rent VHS tapes.  Yet I am young enough to fully enjoy Netflix and Hulu and the instant gratification they provide.  Sure I played Atari 2600 and the original Nintendo but they were bit parts of my childhood.  Admittedly I did spend a good amount of time at the arcade but Rampage wasn’t going to beat itself!  It was a time when walking seemed more common, like after family meals on holidays.  There was always a place to walk as a family.

            I am old enough to have seen the first two schools I attended close.  I went to South Yarmouth Elementary School on Route 28 with Laurence MacArthur as my principal.  The school would eventually bear his name before being closed in 2013 and reopening as a campus for Bridgewater State University in 2015.  I then attended John Simpkins Elementary located on the same plot of land.  It served as the town’s first high school before Dennis-Yarmouth opened in 1957 and housed Grades 3-5 after.  It closed in 2006 and was transformed into the Simpkins School Residences, senior housing, opening in 2014.

The former John Simpkins Elementary in South Yarmouth

            I am old enough to remember the Cape Cod Mall in the days before it expanded.  In those days it was anchored by Woolworth, Filene’s, and Jordan Marsh and had a separate cinema on the property.  I remember spending Friday evenings searching Record Town and Tape World for my next musical interest.  However I am also young enough to enjoy the convenience of what the expanded Mall has brought with so many stores under one roof.

The Cape Cod Mall entrance circa 1995

            I am old enough to remember Cape Cod icons such as Thompson’s Clam Bar, Mildred’s Chowder House, Joe Mac’s, and Mill Hill Club.  There were fewer Shaw’s and Stop & Shop’s and more Angelo’s, Purity Supreme, and A&P’s.  I frequented Bassett’s Wild Animal Farm in Brewster and visited the legendary Cape Cod Coliseum, although it was to see Sesame Street On Ice.

            I am old enough to remember the grounding of the 473-foot freighter Eldia at Nauset Beach in March 1984 and not believing how big it was.  I saw the breach of North Beach in Chatham in January 1987 and am amazed at seeing it healing itself.  In 1991 Hurricane Bob in August and the ‘Perfect Storm’ of October made me appreciate the wonders of electricity after losing power for many days.

The Eldia aground on Nauset Beach in March 1984

            My childhood was a time when drive-in theaters were still the norm.  At their peak there were nearly 4,000 drive-in theaters in the United States, as of 2017 that number has dwindled to 338.  The Wellfleet Drive-In is all that remains of their legacy on Cape Cod.  However I have fond memories of being elementary school aged and visiting the Yarmouth Drive-In across from Captain Parker’s Pub.  I was lucky enough to see movies like E.T., Return of the Jedi, and Flash Gordon in the warm summer air.  Other drive-in theaters in Dennis, Hyannis, and Falmouth once dotted the Cape decades ago as well.

            I remember there being more salamanders and fewer turkeys and coyotes.  I was warned about jellyfish stings when stepping into the ocean, Great White sharks not so much.  I remember the noon whistle in Yarmouth scaring me on numerous occasions.  I remember more Friendly’s and fewer Dunkin’ Donuts, Bradlees instead of Walmart.  Cape Cod seemed much larger then.  A family trip to Edaville Railroad in Carver felt like a drive across the country.  Today Chatham, Provincetown, and Falmouth feel an arm’s length away.

            Amazingly for all of the changes I have seen in my time there are some things which remain the same.  The scent of Cape Cod Potato Chips cooking as you pass along the Mid-Cape Highway between Exits 6 and 7.  106 WCOD on the radio.  Delicious ice cream during the summer from places like Four Seas, Lil’ Caboose, and Ice Cream Smuggler.  Kids and families sledding on the golf courses during winter.  The Barnstable County Fair in July, the Cranberry Festival in Harwich in September, the Yarmouth Seaside Festival in October.

            Then there is the natural beauty of Cape Cod.  It is everywhere.  The National Seashore is as close as one can get to how the Cape must have looked when it was first discovered.  Summer drives along the shore routes in Eastham up through Provincetown are heavenly.  Route 6A is a blast to the past with its historic homes and tree shaded scenery, just like I remember as a child.

            Yes I feel I was born as the absolute perfect time when it comes to the history of Cape Cod.  I have watched the Cape change in some ways and stay the same in others.  This is only my story though, what things do you remember about Cape Cod as children?  What changes have you enjoyed?  What changes have you not liked?  Thanks for reading.