The going is easy as I slip under a canopy of shade trees. I push hard on the pedals – grunt and groan if I must admit. And, once again, I’m off on the 5.9 mile stretch of rail trail that start at Route 134 in Dennis then over to the Pleasant Lake General Store in Harwich. I’ve made the journey for years, in this, the Cape’s best month, September. The crowds thin, the sun cools and there are curiosities at every turn for those who decide that the going there is better than the getting there.
Now I’m passing behind backyards, feeling like the intruder, peeking in on what most people would never put in the front yard: a garden that didn’t take, boxes and buckets of projects long unfinished piled against lumber unused, and that skiff still in drydock, still tucked away in a forgotten corner, its bow like a chin pointed straight at me, daring me to criticize.
I take some pity on these minor delinquencies remembering what I’ve left undone, grateful that my backyard can keep its secrets.
The woods recede and the scene in front of me opens wide to the first of the cranberry bogs. My route to the general store is defined in large measure by these rolling carpets, cut by the narrow canals of generations of farmers and marked by a lonely pump house, a faded red, faded but not forgotten.
The sprinklers are going like mad in a frenzied snap-to. I pull off onto the soft sandy shoulder to count the weeks until harvest – six or is it seven? – when suddenly a hawk rises, dips and soars again, patient but determined in its quest for its next meal.
I look toward the trail ahead as a family of six seems to be coming right at me, each on their own battery-powered two-wheeler. One of the youngest children is busy talking to the others when he veers close enough that I have to pull back my own bike with a jerk to avoid collision. I worry about the natural serenity that’s lost as these contraptions multiply in places where they don’t belong.
I pass an abandoned bog being converted to wetlands. The cranberry plants have been scooped out, clearing the way for fresh habitat for the birds and other creatures that will call it home. I hear the skittering away of a small creature I must have startled, one too clever to ever make itself visible. And then, a few hundred yards later, a fox darts down a small embankment and disappears.
We are indeed intruders, but hopefully the denizens of these sanctuary woods understand that most of us simply want a closer look and a better understanding.
I get off my bike and walk down to the edge of Hinkley’s Pond. Along the shoreline I spot the corners of houses coming out from under the lush cover of trees. And then I see the tail end – of all things – a small aircraft. Maybe a seaplane that lands and takes off from here?
Now the general store is in sight. I’ll sit on the bench with a cup of ice cream and think about the ride back. Much to see on September’s slow roll.
And about that seaplane – I made a few calls that led me to Tim Howard, manager of the Chatham Airport. He knew all about it. He said the old Cessna is no longer air worthy. So, for now, it’s simply one of the Rail Trail’s more interesting pieces of landscape art.
