Turtles don't go on vacation

Working 7 days a week in the outdoors with only one coworker means that you often forget what day it is. I completely forgot about the 4^th of July until one of my housemates said she was going to a barbeque. The plethora of tourists reminded me though, ugh. Traffic was bad and there were people everywhere. We got to see the parade though…correction, we drove through it.

We were driving back from Great Island and we saw a lot of people going into town. We thought we’d go around it, but a police officer waved us through…into block party’s worth of people. Children running in the street, parents standing in the road taking pictures, it was utter pandemonium! I was freaking out just a bit and rolled up the windows so my color commentary wasn’t shared with the entire street. We made it without having to pick tourists from Vinnie’s grill, so it wasn’t so bad. I think they thought we were part of the parade, silly me.

Since it was the 4^th our house had to have a picnic! Did we go into town and watch fireworks? Go to a barbeque? No. We made banana bread, cheese, bread and other assorted delicious things, packed them up and sat on the dunes to watch the fireworks! There were a lot of bugs, but it was worth it. It was pitch black; the only lights came from the town. Since the dunes in the Province Lands are so high we saw fireworks in Province Town, Truro and Wellfleet! No one else was there because everyone was in town and we could climb the dunes thanks to our permits. (Afterwards we had to look for toads). It was gorgeous; we were level with the explosions and far enough away that the sound was delayed. When the fireworks died down we lay on our towels and watched the endless map of stars above our heads. We talked and made wishes on shooting stars navigating the sky. We were completely alone in the dunes except for the chirping crickets and coyote pups learning to howl. To quote my Peanut: “Its like a scene out of a movie.” It certainly felt like it.

Terrapins today: 1

Terrapin count: 53

Nest count: 14