(This entry should be read after the entry below it on the blog). Was she surprised?

The Symmes/Jones household was hopping on Monday night as the family, which includes three daughters, was getting ready to spend a couple of weeks at Chappaquidick. In addition to me and Beth, they were also hosting Marianne's sister and her friend. Marianne had prepared a big pasta dish and salad. We were all up late getting ready so as to get an early start in the morning. When morning came Beth rode with Whit to Woods Hole and I set off by bike for Boston. Of the 68 miles that day the most notable was around mile 65 when the skies opened up and it rained as I have never seen it rain before - not even in Guatemala. I got my raincoat on and then just huddled over my handle bars for about five minutes. Then, with the deluge still upon us, I started to ride. After a while I took shelter in a super market and called Betsy McCagg from there. It turned out that I was only a short distance from their home so when the rain subsided I headed out and arrived for my sleep over at about 6:30. Betsy's sister Mary and her family came for dinner. It was a fine thing to see these young families sharing what I consider the best years of all, those when one's children are young.

The next day I rode into Boston and caught a ferry to Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod arriving with enough time to bike about half way down the cape where I spent the night at a hostel. I had two interesting meetings during the day. The first was near Cambridge when I asked directions of a young woman and after speaking with her for a moment I realized she was the very person Betsy had spoken of the night before and whose picture she had shown me. She will be the US single women's sculler at Beijing. The other interesting conversation was with a 50 something guy who was on the ferry and had a backpack. I asked him if he was going to be camping on Cape Cod and that opened a soliloquy on something called stealth camping. This guy was starting a walk down the east coast of the country in which he planned to camp at any unposted area that met his fancy. He pointed out that while it is against the rules to sleep on the beach during the night, it mostly was not so during the day. Nor is it prohibited to walk on the beach at night. He was prepared to reverse the normal order of things. Apparently you can read about stealth camping on line.

This brings us to Thursday, my day to get to Woods Hole and surprise Mo. There is a nice bike trail over the middle third of the cape. North of that there is a side road that is good for riding as the traffic is fairly slow and not too heavy. But yesterday the last portion of the ride was a bit trying. Nonetheless I arrived at the home of Nancy, the other birthday girl, and seemed to surprise Mo when she later arrived herself.

For the party givers and the early arrivers, the party was on.

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