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Wednesday, June 14, 2006
The Big Muddy
Greetings, Gentle Reader,
If Kathy can work her Blogmistress Magic, you will (soon) see photos attached to this entry of our recent visit to Cape May, NJ. I stood on the beach looking across the Delaware "River" towards Delaware...and no Delaware. It's a big river. The waves lapping the beach had a certain "Yoo Hoo" patina, and the confluence of the Delaware and the Atlantic is roiling water indeed. Roiling Yoo Hoo; an eighth grader's dream, a rowers nightmare.
I walked up the beach (upstream) about a mile to the jetty at the end of the canal from which I will be emerging as I make my turn for home, and conditions looked a bit better. Had I been rowing that day, I would have had a two foot chop and a quartering tailwind...manageable, I think, and of course I will be aided - should I make it that far - by 300 miles of judgement and experience under my (hopefully shrinking) belt.
This will be a learning experience.
Cape May is a cute - albeit expensive - little town. Parking meters line every street and spin like slot machines. The hospitality industry is manned by high-cheekboned eastern European servers with lilting accents and enchanting interpretations of the specials of the day. The town is bisected by a canal that was intended to shield shipping from marauding U-boats during WW II, and there are prominent artifacts from this conflict on the beach; an impressive concrete gun emplacement breaks the waves just off the town, and the skyline further upstream is dominated by a futuristic concrete spotting tower ( a "fire control" outpost) that would make a killer condo. It will be a nice place for a rest-day, and I know people there with showers.
Seeing the Delaware River has sobered me to the challenge that it will represent. It's about a seventy mile pull upstream to the C&D Canal, and I think my primary incentive at the poignant moment when I clear the jetty will be the fact that I will have come so far...and only 1/3 of the journey will remain.
Gentle Readers, I'm stunned by how few of you have entered the sweepstakes for guessing the moment of my arrival. I mean, four entrants? Come on. Really. Is it possible that only four of you believe that I will indeed nudge something in the Inner Harbor? Happily, no one has entered the sweeps with the canny judgement that I'll pull up in Ossning, NY, wimpering, "No mas." C'mon, put in a guess...even if it's Kingston...Ossning...Cape May...or even Charm City itself. "Four entrants" suggests a 25% chance regardless of judgement...and I'd like to get a thermometer test of the public sentiment of my prospects. Take a shot, will you?
We are officially over the $7,000 with Trish's gracious lump-sum payment. If this keeps up, the Delaware will look a little less fearsome in August. I, and the boys, thank you!!!
More later.
