Mayan astronomers knew from naked-eye observations that Venus appeared on the western and disappeared on the eastern horizons at different times in the year, and that it took 584 days to complete one cycle. El Caracol observatory at Chichen Itza is aligned to follow the path of Venus through the year. The grand staircase leading to the cylindrical structure deviates 27.5 degrees from the alignment of the surrounding buildings to align with the northern extreme of Venus; the northeast-southwest diagonal of the site aligns with the sunrise of the summer solstice and the sunset of the winter solstice.
A simpler more primal geometry connected the land to the night sky at Coast Guard Beach. The waves came crashing in from the east, the sun set behind the sand dunes on the west and Venus rose directly over the sickle moon.
Not able to fall back asleep, K agreed to join me on an early morning hike, but instead of driving south to the local lighthouse beach in chatham as she expected, I decided to head north to truro. “where are we going?” “if you don’t want to go I’ll drop you off at the house.” I stopped the car in the middle of the road. She paused, then relented. I thought this would be my last day in Cape Cod, as K and the kids were sick of me and wanted to go home.
We drove up to a random trail… pamet trail. Again, the trailhead sprung from beach we had frequented in one of our summers’ past. The trail cut through the yellow green sea grass to reddish shrubs to various vantage points at higher elevation. We scrambled up the sand path to the top of Bearberry Hill. From the top one could see a panoramic vista of the land-- series of landscaped bowls making the scale of the place seem a lot grander. We see a pond below, a house on a bluff, the ocean, and the sunrise rays poking through the clouds beyond. From a winter season’s worth of disuse, sometimes the trail would taper down to 6” wide. Just enough to fit one foot width in. Oak trees and dry orange pitch pines. The leafless oak trees ascended the hill like a gray fog interrupted by chains of dried out orange-needled pitch pines.
The supposed mile-long loop hike to a Bog House turned into a 5 hour odyssey as we headed north aimlessly choosing turns at forks haphazardly. Hundreds of miles of unmarked trails slash through the Truro forests. When Thoreau walked through this landscape 170 years ago, there were hardly any trees as they had all been cut down for cattle grazing. He writes of being able to see the bayside from the cliffs of the ocean side. Nowadays, the hills are populated with pitch pine forests, and white oak forests that block the view of the bay from the east side. The transitions between forests are noticeable and an easy lesson in tree identification. In spring, the pitch pine forests and their pine needle sand floors are dark while the leafless white oak forests are open and grayish white. Walking through these forests was like walking through shadows and light.
After a couple hours of hiking, we saw artifacts of a strange civilization. A clearing with a couple wood benches, a patch of daffodils, a mysterious road, a gate that stops vehicular traffic, an odd looking building which had a phallic figure mounted on top of a trellis over a 1 story masonry structure. “Was this a men’s bathroom?” I joked. In an area where signs are put everywhere, there was only 1 sign on this building. On the door behind a barbed wire fence, it read, “This facility is used in FAA air traffic control. Loss of human life may result from service interruption any person who interferes with air traffic control or damages on this property will be prosecuted under federal law.” Unlike any other town in the Cape, over 70% of Truro is undeveloped and incorporated in the national seashore. Much of the land was part of an airforce complex built in 1951 in response to the Russians testing their first atomic bomb, the North Truro Air Force Station became one of the first radar listening stations to monitor for Soviet bombers. The military buildings serve as ominous reminders of the past. The station was decommissioned in 1994 upon the end of the Cold War and most of the land was sold to the National Park Service as part of the Cape Cod National Seashore.
Worried about going further into strange military surveillanced zones, we decide to head back to the trail head. Mysterious paved roads that end in dirt paths led us farther and farther astray. We didn’t see another person for 4 hours until we encountered a woman running her german shepherd on a dirt road. she said the path we were on was part of the “old king’s highway” the main connecting road between towns before route 6 was established. Great. Thoreau walked here in the past. K talks to the woman, trying to find out who lives here now, (not artists like Edward hopper anymore) what that penis radar structure was (i don't know, i've only seen it once myself), what animal leaves droppings on the trails (it was coyote) etc… after the conversation, I ask K if she noticed that the runner’s dog’s penis was noticeably erect. She tells me to get my mind out of the gutter and can’t believe that was what I was observing during the conversation to which I joke later that the trails looks like an ideal porno movie outdoor set where a man can be seen humping a woman from behind in standing position. Furthermore, I joke K could grasp the pitch pine before us and we could re-enact such scene. Of course I could look out left while she could look out right along the deserted pathways to see if anyone was approaching. “In your dreams” she replied.
Transitioning between forests on our trail back, one could feel the change between pine needle floors and cackling oak leaf carpets underfoot. At times polka dot green lichen on pitch pines scaly bark formed natural abstract 3D Kusama-like installations. Nearing the trailhead, we saw the simple red sign attached to a tree-- Bog House, our original destination. "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” Had we seen the sign, 4 hours of roaming wouldn’t have happened. At the end of the trail was a curious house with dilapidated white shutters and doors on its second floor. Why were the doors placed on the 2nd floor? Did the architects want to challenge societal norms like MVRDV’s Double House doors on upper floors or was it because several families lived in the same house, and the residents of the first floor didn’t want the tenants on the 2nd floor to go through their space, and each second floor tenant had ladders to their abode? These are the secrets that are lost to the past. Outside the house, a clearing formed a garden in front of a series of 3 small bogs. For thousands of years, indians boiled cranberries with sugar for sauce to eat with meat. The local pamet wampanoag Indians called the cranberries itibimi meaning bitter berry. In the mid 1800’s when whaling went into decline and sugar prices dipped thanks to slave trade, cranberry harvesting provided seafarers an alternative way of life. Here the white men carved their commercial bogs into wetlands. The berries were transported in hulls of ships and provided vitamin C which prevented scurvy.
Transitioning between forests on our trail back, one could feel the change between pine needle floors and cackling oak leaf carpets underfoot. At times polka dot green lichen on pitch pines scaly bark formed natural abstract 3D Kusama-like installations. Nearing the trailhead, we saw the simple red sign attached to a tree-- Bog House, our original destination. "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” Had we seen the sign, 4 hours of roaming wouldn’t have happened. At the end of the trail was a curious house with dilapidated white shutters and doors on its second floor. Why were the doors placed on the 2nd floor? Did the architects want to challenge societal norms like MVRDV’s Double House doors on upper floors or was it because several families lived in the same house, and the residents of the first floor didn’t want the tenants on the 2nd floor to go through their space, and each second floor tenant had ladders to their abode? These are the secrets that are lost to the past. Outside the house, a clearing formed a garden in front of a series of 3 small bogs. For thousands of years, indians boiled cranberries with sugar for sauce to eat with meat. The local pamet wampanoag Indians called the cranberries itibimi meaning bitter berry. In the mid 1800’s when whaling went into decline and sugar prices dipped thanks to slave trade, cranberry harvesting provided seafarers an alternative way of life. Here the white men carved their commercial bogs into wetlands. The berries were transported in hulls of ships and provided vitamin C which prevented scurvy.
Much has changed since Thoreau walked through cape cod in 1850. During his time, he noted dozens of Indian arrowheads could be found by pond shores and hundreds of orcas would be driven onto the beaches of truro, to be slaughtered and harvested for their blubber and meat. Ships and schooners would dot the horizon like stars linking the cape to faraway ports. The land was barren and used for grazing. Today the pamet way of life and the whales are gone, and structures marking cold war fear and cranberry harvesting linked to slave trade economies are hidden away amongst the wave of new growth pitch pine forests. 5000 years from now, geologists predict the cape itself will be washed away into the ocean by wave action. All the layers of inhabitation and mysteries of why the doors were arranged on the second floor will be lost under the sea.
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