Author: Ella

My mom has vivid memories of her rock. She grew up on a farm in Preston, Ct., her parents and older siblings working from sun up to sun down when not in school. Mom would sometimes escape from chores and walk up the hill behind her house to a large rock where she could perch,…

Over the quiet first months of the pandemic, when gyms were shut down and I began taking long rambling walks, I grew to enjoy listening to podcasts. Freakonomics is one of my regulars and not long ago, there was a fascinating three part series on the whaling industry. From the beginnings in Nantucket, the sociology…

Yesterday we rode from the lush green flats of the Cape to the verdant green rolling hills of Connecticut…yes, it’s all green, all the time here. Except when the leaves turn colors, which is beginning. First up, more cousins. Both my mom and dad had lots of siblings, therefore, lots of cousins. Sharen and Tom…

What a great way to see another side of the Cape. We enjoyed wonderful hospitality, expeditions to the Atlantic, got a flavor of the history, including the Native American cultures, not to mention the all-you-can eat lobster dinner. Marc and I are second cousins: our fathers, Irwin and Joe, are first cousins. I got to…

And just like that, the first week of our travels is in the bag. We flew in just missing Hurricane Lee, or rather Hurricane Lee just missed the Cape, and today we rode the edge of Tropical Storm Ophelia as we made our way to Connecticut. Meanwhile, yesterday was another beautiful day on the Cape….

I am still feeling the effects. Yow! A fabulous dinner of boiled lobster. Grubb and I were tutored in the finer points of lobster dismantling by Helen and Irwin. Scooping out the body meat, prying off the claws and floaters and fishing out the thin strips with a lobster fork,dropping the bits and chunks into…

On a frigid winter’s day during a powerful nor easter in 1952, an oil tanker, the Pendleton, snapped in two 10 miles off the coast of Chatham. They didn’t manage to issue an SOS, but a couple hours later, the two pieces of the tanker were picked up on radar. The Coast Guard launched a…

From Barry and Deirdre’s home in West Barnstable (north side of the Mid Cape) we moved 25 minutes east to Marc and Judi’s in Harwich, on the south side of the Lower Cape.  First order of business (okay, after a gin and tonic and a lovely dinner), was an expedition to Paine’s Creek Beach to…

What a wonderful start to our journey. Thank you to our wonderful hosts, Barry and Deirdre, for putting up with us for four days, for beginning our orientation to the Cape and to New England, for fun, educational, stimulating conversation, maps and recommendations, and for our first ever lobster roll. Barry and I are first…

I can’t get enough of the green.

A couple days ago, we walked by the 1717 Meetinghouse. Yesterday, Deirdre was able to get us inside for a look around. Long story short: London, England, 1616, Pastor Henry Jacob breaks from the Church of England to found the Congregationalists who were forced to meet in secret. Years later, he was discovered and imprisoned….

Yesterday was a gray, rainy day on the Cape. The kind we New Mexicans love because they are so rare for us. What to do? Pile in the car and take a drive to Hyannis, only a few miles away. Deirdre drove us to the extravagant golf course, the Kennedy compound and the John F….

Barry and Deirdre have lived on the Cape in West Barnstable  for decades. First up yesterday morning, a walking history tour. with Barry and  Deirdre. A seafaring, rural community in a lush green setting. We learned about Cape style homes (did you know there is a full Cape, 3/4 Cape and 1/2 Cape?). We walked into the…

Good thing I made a pit stop at the 5 star bathroom before we went searching for the Avis counter, purportedly said to be in the airport confines. Signs directed us to a Skywalk, up the escalator, straight over two main streets and a parking lot…a half mile later we turned a corner to find…

Have you ever flown into the Providence airport? We were tipped off by cousins Barry and Deirdre that this would be a lot easier than flying into Boston because driving out of Boston was a major headache. The Providence airport is small. Smaller even than Albuquerque. There is only one terminal with a total of…