Aug
10
Boston to Cape Cod
by Emily in
We are very fortunate to have Aysha Ghazoul join us from Boston to New York. I mentioned in previous blog posts, but here’s a quick recap: we met Aysha in Portland during Leg 1 and she wanted to join us because she has a loved one with Young Onset Dementia, is a filmmaker, and loves biking. Aysha writes email updates to her friends and family every few days, which are explicit and offer great insight to our days. So I’m going to post them as they come, along with photos.
(August 9, 2009)
Dear Family and Friends,
Our first day on the road (Friday) was fantastic. We managed to cover 70 miles…the longest that Max and Emily had ever done in a day. The road that we were on was a bike route that had designated signs along the way which was extremely helpful. We stopped for breaks, photos and ice cream of course, and by around 6pm we finally rolled into Plymouth. The town was beautiful but “the rock” was hilarious. I expected some beautiful dramatic rocky bank on which the pilgrims stepped foot on when first arriving and instead it was literally a rock about 8 feet wide by 15 feet long surrounded by a metal railing. It has to be one of the strangest tourist sights I have ever seen. It was so beautiful next to the water that we were in no rush to head off to the camp site…something that we regretted fairly quickly. By the time we got to the entrance of Myles Standish State Forest the sun had almost set. The first part of the road was all paved which was wonderful but the moment it became pitch black, the road switched to a rougher surface. With small bike lights on our handlebars the only other light source was from the moon which on that night was minimal to say the least. We cycled for 5 miles being pelted by hundreds of insects large and small hitting what seemed like every pot hole along the way hoping to see some sign of civilation. When we finally made it to the camp site we were greeted by families sitting around their fires, drinking, eating, and listening to very loud dance music. It was all quite surreal but a huge relief at the same time. We snacked on a sandwich, made our tent…ok Max and Emily made the tent, and all squeezed in for a surprisingly peaceful night.
Aysha crossing the bridge into Cape Cod
The morning was not so peaceful because we were woken up at 7am by yet more loud dance music. None the less we had a pleasant morning, packed up and headed back on the road to Cape Cod. That evening we stayed with the Noonan Family who are struck with the genetic form of young onset alzheimers. Out of ten siblings two had the gene and have passed away and another who is 56 is currently living with it and is staying in a care facility. Of course other siblings as well as the children of those siblings may also have the gene but they have chosen not to find out. There is a 50% chance that if you have this gene it can be passed onto your children which of course for some creates the difficult dilemma of whether to find out or not.
They provided us with a lovely dinner from a local Cambodian restaurant and we were joined by three of Patty’s teenage grandchilden. Patty’s husband also took us to the cape where we swam in gorgeous 70 degree water. While floating far out he decided to let us know that this is where they had filmed the movie “jaws”…some people have a strange sense of humor.
Max, Em and Aysha on the "Jaws" beach in Cape Cod
After Max and Emily did an extensive interview with Patty this morning we are now about to head off towards Providence. We are not cycling very far today because there are limited places to stay and the one site we had picked 45 miles away doesn’t allow tents, only RVs. Turns out that some camp sites out here require a membership fee of $475 a year…I mean seriously it’s just camping. So tomorrow will be another long and fun day on the bikes. I wish I could write more but we need to leave and I apologise about the bad grammer. I am not a very good writer when rushed and I seem to be using a keyboard that likes to drop letters every so often.
Lots of love, Aysha