1. It’s probably been a year since I went on a true photo trip. Ironically, it started in the exact same way. My buddy Steve’s family has a summer cottage out on The Gurnet in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It has been in their family for over 130 years. The Gurnet is a private community and also a four-mile drive down Duxbury Beach. In the spring, Steve likes to bring some belongings up to the cottage as they prepare to open it up. I tend to tag along, as it is a perfect excuse for a photo trip. It also allows me access to Gurnet Lighthouse, which is at the point. I have been out there probably close to 10 times now, and every time I go, I get the same photo of the lighthouse looking back toward Duxbury Beach from atop an earthen fort. As much as I like trying to find different angles of photos, this one, for some reason, speaks to me.
2. The trip didn’t begin too early. I got up at 6am like I would on any workday. I made sure everything I needed was packed the night before, since it’s my thousandth photo trip or something like that. Of course, it wouldn’t be a normal trip without me forgetting something on my end. This time is was forgetting to charge my camera battery. You can’t blame me, though, as I hadn’t touched my camera since November when I shot my nephew’s Senior photos. Since then, it’s been in its bag collecting dust. It didn’t end up affecting the trip much though, since I was fully prepared to use my phone and selfie stick.
3. Speaking of that selfie stick, I put it to good use while driving the four miles out to The Gurnet. I rolled down the window and filmed much of the ride out. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary except for the other vehicle that came flying up behind us. I am sure they were either curious or irritated by me, who must have looked like some vlogger or influencer recording the drive out. Hey, I’m not famous, but I’m not above trying to get some good footage to try to go viral. I half expected them to follow us up to Steve’s cottage to yell at us for not going faster on the winding, holey, dirt road.
4. A usual spot we hit on the annual Gurnet trip is Gunther Tooties. It is a small bagel and coffee shop with five locations, typically located inside gas station markets. They have a bunch of different bagel types and cream cheese flavors. Each time I go in, I have no idea what I want. It’s like I need to learn what a bagel is or something. The toughest choice was the flavor of cream cheese. The girl at the register told me where the flavors were listed on the board. I saw chocolate chip and said I wanted that. Unfortunately, that was a bagel flavor as I was not reading the right list. Feeling a bit dumb, I think the girl could tell, and so she recommended honey walnut cream cheese to go with my French toast bagel. I agreed. As we drove off, it dawned on me that I believe that I get the same order every time, yet I go in the next time like it’s my first time. It’s like the mind eraser from Men in Black is located in the door as I exit.
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| The Plymouth location |
5. I have wanted to go to Gooseberry Island in Westport, Massachusetts, for years. The main reason is a concrete observation tower from World War II. The island itself is 73 acres and has more than just the tower and the other smaller tower near it. However, I had tunnel vision and could not have cared less about the ocean scenery on either side of the walk out. The towers didn’t disappoint, despite being coated in graffiti. There were no secret entrances to either tower, although I might have been able to squeeze sideways into a narrow opening in the smaller tower. The piles of trash inside though, stopped any foolish ideas. It was while we were out at the towers that we noticed dark clouds increasing. As the sprinkles began to fall, I hesitated, hurrying back to the truck since there was an outside chance of a rainbow appearing. That became a running theme of the rest of the photo trip: hoping for a rainbow as it rained. There never was one.
6. Much like not being able to read the flavored cream cheeses at Gunther Tooties earlier, I had another ‘eyes playing tricks on me’ moment while leaving Gooseberry Island. I walked past a gray SUV that was covered in bumper stickers. I spotted one with a weird message in cursive on it. Now, after the fact, I realized that the sticker said ‘Kinda Sweet. Kinda Savage.’ What did I think it said? Kinda Sweet. Kindness Sausage.’ Is this the same as mishearing lyrics in a song? Someone needs to make that bumper sticker now. I had to laugh and then had a whale of a time explaining to Steve why I was laughing. Hey, they have ‘kindness rocks,’ why not kindness sausage?
7. One thing that you notice right away when driving around certain parts of the south coast of Massachusetts is that there is a lot of farmland. Like you wouldn’t expect that much. There are urban areas like New Bedford and Fall River, sure, but then there are stretches where it's wide open areas with cattle and rock walls. Towns like Westport, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, and Middleboro have a mix of both. You drive and see barns, silos, animals, and then a few minutes later, you’re on a main road littered with fast food and strip malls. Even on Cape Cod, we don’t have that much wide open space. Any farm down here is like pocket-sized. Don’t even get me started about how much different Western Mass is compared to the east. That’s mostly due to the Berkshire Mountains. The south coast of Massachusetts makes for a scenic, if not unexpectedly so, photography trip.
8. I love road trips. That being said, I also unfortunately get terrible car sickness. The same goes for boats. So, as much as I loved the idea of Steve driving the 200+ miles we ended up doing on the photo trip, there was also lingering dread in the back of my head. Would I get carsick? I always take Dramamine about an hour before being the passenger in someone else’s car. Sometimes it works great, other times not so much. The irony is that I feel fine when I drive. I have learned it’s because my brain is in control of anything from movement to acceleration, etc. That’s not the case when a passenger. We were out from just before 8am until close to 5pm on that trip, and I did well. Granted, I had my Dramamine, a few ibuprofen during the trip, and an extra hit of caffeine to stave off any nausea. I wasn’t taking any chances. I’d much rather just sit and be the passenger on any road trip, but due to motion sickness, I tend to be the driver the majority of the time. At least my car is great on gas.
9. Visiting Gooseberry Island was out of order for our itinerary. We had anticipated stopping first at Parsons Reserve in Dartmouth. It is a walking trail known for its incredible field of daffodils in the middle. I had ideas for photos and videos that were dancing in my head. Unfortunately, with it being school vacation week, loads of families had the same idea. We drove past the main parking lot. It was full, and they had security directing people. So we drove a few hundred feet to the backup lot. It was also full. That’s why we ended up at Gooseberry Island. Once we finished there, we headed back toward Parsons Reserve as the rain began to steadily fall. It was touch and go as far as bringing our cameras out there, but I said, since we were there, why not just give it a try? It wasn’t like we could just go back the next day since it’s about an hour drive for us. We wandered about ¼ mile to get to the daffodil field. Signs were telling you no professional photo shoots and no equipment. Little did they know my selfie stick was also a tripod, so joke’s on them. Even in the rain, there were probably 15-20 people wandering the rows of 27 different varieties of daffodils. Signs were telling you which direction to go, including one-way signs. Dogs and screaming kids were there as well, but I can always use editing techniques to get rid of those sounds when making videos. The rain fell throughout the time there, but it made for some cool ASMR videos. It is recommended to visit Parsons Reserve and the daffodils during the spring. If you’re going in the off-season, it’s not going to be anything special since the daffodils are the main attraction.
10. Fort Rodman and Fort Taber in New Bedford make up a historic site that I have been to many times. Rodman is a granite structure, while Taber is an earthen fort that is pretty creepy and also grimy when you step inside. Years ago, when I went there were holes smashed out of some of the lower-floor granite of Fort Rodman, which allowed you to see inside to an overgrown, creepy courtyard. Now those have all been sealed over. Still, there is a hole in the front wooden doors, so you still get a little bit of a view. I wanted a video walking through Fort Taber. Even though it’s a public area and the fort itself isn’t as big as it seems, I still made sure to wait to make sure a couple of people I saw weren’t going to follow me inside. I like the historic site, but some places in New Bedford are sketchy to say the least. This part of the photo trip ended with me walking a long concrete walkway to get a close-up photo of Butler Flats Lighthouse, located a half-mile or so offshore. Unfortunately, while standing all the way out there, I realized I needed to pee. It was doubly unfortunate because no bathrooms were open on the grounds. I briefly debated the pros and cons of peeing over the side into the ocean, but remembered the entire property was under video surveillance. That’s not the type of thing you want to be known for. I wisely held it in.
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| Looking toward Fort Rodman from atop Fort Taber |
11. My saving grace was a Wendy’s in New Bedford. Steve wanted a quick bite. I needed a bathroom badly, and we both won. The standout moment from this part of the trip was not the fact that I resisted a spicy chicken sandwich and fries. No, it was a lone goose just relaxing in a small grassy area right off a busy street at the edge of the parking lot. Mind you, this is a highly developed section of New Bedford. There were no ponds nearby, hardly any trees. It was all busy streets and shopping plazas. This one goose was lying down, seemingly undisturbed by the number of cars, people, and overall noise. I thought about going over to try to get an up close photo of the city goose, but I figured it might end one of two ways. Either the goose gets mad and comes at me and I have to run away. Or the goose gets scared and flies into traffic and gets turned into a piñata for cars. That second one would, of course, lead to people looking at me for scaring an innocent goose. I decided to just let it be.
12. I created a retrospective video about the 6 weeks or so that the north side of Cape Cod was choked with ice back in winter. The irony is that I was holding off to make sure we had no chance of getting any more snow. I didn’t want to release it on YouTube and then have a freak snowstorm happen. I figured it would look like I jinxed us. Well, we didn’t get a snowstorm, but we did get a brief but intense hailstorm one day this week. The hail was smaller than peas, but it fell so intensely for 10-15 minutes that it made the ground white. So it might not have been a snowstorm, but it was close. Now I think we should be safe from freak spring snow (knocks wood).
13. Sometimes I have to stop and really appreciate how lucky I am. This is a two-part story. First, I was lucky that this week I got to spend some time hanging out and having fun with my 7-year-old niece, Sylvie. She is a bundle of energy and is already very sporty. So she wanted to be out in the yard kicking a soccer ball around. That’s easy enough for me. While running around and kicking, I stopped paying attention to my surroundings. That came back to bite me as I went running for the ball too close to a bush. In a one-in-a-million shot, one of the branches literally went right into my ear canal, slamming into my eardrum. It was a shocking pain, and I immediately grabbed for my ear. I was terrified that I had done permanent damage. The first thing I did was start snapping my fingers next to my ear to make sure I hadn’t lost my hearing. That was the other lucky part. I have no clue how close I came to bursting my eardrum and suddenly being partially deaf. All the while, I had to not let my niece see how much pain I was in. I just kept playing with her all the while checking my ear for any damage.
14. Humbled and grateful are the words I would use to describe my feelings after my first author event of the year. It was held at the West Dennis Library, not too far a drive for me. I was speaking about Cape Cod history and specifically my 10th book, In Their Footsteps: The Interesting People, Places, and Events of Cape Cod History. There has been loads of construction going on in West Dennis, and once I pulled into the library parking lot and saw that there was half of the parking lot was surrounded by a chain link fence, I didn’t have a good feeling about turnout. I was wrong. People filed in, and kept filing in. The staff had to grab several more chairs to fit the 30 or so people who came to hear me speak. The event went great, even if my voice started getting raspy. The fact that so many people came out to see me is something I will never take for granted. It still surprises me that I have people willing to take time out of their day to come to an event of mine. I do my best to make it fun, engaging, and interesting. I also sold a whole bunch of books, nearly my whole stock. It was a wonderful time, and I hope I can do many more of them this year and next.
15. Having worked as a trainer for 10 years and watched my overall health for a lot longer, I have tried everything. Any exercise, any class, any type of cardio, any diet, any supplement. You name it, I have tried it. I wish I could sit back and tell people, whether clients or just friends and family, that I had a cheat code for them to get in better shape (whatever that might be). The bottom line is that there is no cheat code. It comes down to consistency. It comes down to discipline. It comes down to diet. That doesn’t mean you need to eat 1,000 calories a day, do an hour of cardio, and lift for another hour 6 days a week. No, consistency means making a plan and sticking to it until it becomes a habit. One healthy meal doesn’t make you healthy. One lifting session doesn’t make you strong. One walk doesn’t give you S-tier cardio levels. I get it that getting into shape is hard, especially if you’ve been on the other side of that equation for a long time. I tell people to break it down into small, manageable goals. Eat well for a day, then another day, etc. Find 30 minutes to do some sort of exercise one day, then another day, etc. My only frustration comes when people ask me for advice, and I give it, and they ignore it because it’s not ‘oh snap your fingers and you’ll be where you want to be.’ Once you get people asking you for advice constantly for months, and you find yourself repeating the exact same stuff, it gets to the point where I just want to tell them, ‘you obviously don’t really want to get healthy, so go do whatever you think is right and stop wasting my time.’
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