John & Anne Wiley

Today started with a ride from our hotel in Edgartown over to Oak Bluffs, courtesy of the outstanding Sun ‘n Fun bike shop. Pilots will immediately realize how fitting it is that we got such great and helpful service from a friendly bike rental shop with the same name as a famous annual Florida aviation event. Anyway, we then rode over to Vineyard Haven to get the battery charged for Anne’s little red pocket camera.

0883 Main Street

We learned that Main Street is pretty much “it” in V.H., and in the end decided to wait on getting the original battery charged because we bought a new one that came with a full charge. Then a nice gourmet tarragon chicken sandwich to take with us, and off we rode the several miles out to the airport.

0884 Sandwich Wait

By the time we got there, the sandwich was most welcome! Then into Tripp for the quick flight over to Chatham on the “elbow” of Cape Cod. Along the way, endlessly fascinating islets and sand bars.

4230 Sand & Tide

Sure, we passed Hyannis Port where we tried to guess which estates had played a prominent role in the JFK “Camelot” story. But the dance of sand and tide was so compelling!

4233 Cloud Garnish

Those low clouds just off the East end of the Cape got my attention, and I studied their motion carefully before turning back to land at Chatham a few miles inland.

4238 Cape Art

These small versions of the pix don’t do justice to the remarkable beauty of all this, but even the raw hi-res originals pale in comparison with what we saw. We stopped for fuel, but it probably also helped to rest our eyes so that this scene was even more impactful when we saw it for the second time climbing to cross over toward Nantucket for our return.

4269 Foam Touches

The strokes of foam floating on the water added an impression of depth to the submerged ripples of sand. Continuing the climb we looked back across the arm of the Cape to the distant lighthouse on the far tip that was clearer than in this pic.

4276 Out The Cape

4280 Nantucket Light

You can’t really see it in this wide shot, but the closest tip of Nantucket has a large lighthouse that here is a tiny white dot. Some miles and pix later we crossed Chappaquiddick where a lovely sand bar stands off the main island, connected by a small bridge.

4318 Chappaquiddick Bar

On the bridge were some people I thought might be fishing, but looking at the full-size version of this next pic I can see they’re apparently standing in the middle somberly looking around.

4317 Chappaquiddick Bridge

In case you don’t know the story of this bridge, here’s a link to the story about its role in a tragic event involving Ted Kennedy. There is a quiet sadness here that we felt even from a quarter mile above. For me it evokes a powerful sense of how events can suddenly take a turn, and dramatically change everything. A happy example of that is the day Anne and I met some decades ago. Or the day we met Tripp and brought her into our lives, to wander the skies over North America. Life is full of turning points, and we were thinking about this as we turned to fly one more time over the now more familiar landmarks of Martha’s Vineyard and then land to ride our bikes back in the gathering darkness on a hiking trail around the silent Tradewind grass air strip.

We started the day surrounded by dear friends and Ed’s family for breakfast, all of whom now are our friends.

3532 Friends & Family

Ed then drove we four on a fun and fascinating tour of his beloved Montreal, including of course a drive up Mount Royal for the stunning high view.

3542 High View

Tho the light angle wasn’t as good for pix a little later, we got what for me was an even more impressive high view as we passed the same area on our way to Quebec City.

3633 High Again

We notice odd shapes below as we flew along near the river, finally figuring out they were large flocks of birds making such magical shapes of dots the eye connects.

3676 Connect the Dots

Walking down into the old city after a warm and tasty dinner, it felt both like being in Europe and for me even more powerfully as if we were walking back several centuries in time.

3776 Into the Past

We spotted what looks like a path down toward the river into the really old part of the city, said to be the oldest European city in North America.

3791 Gateway

Tomorrow we’ll probably find out.