NORTHEASTERN U.S. trip
June 13-18 2014
PART 6
MA 3 is an extension of US 3, and it's made up primarily of Pilgrims Highway, which is this freeway running from Boston to Cape Cod. The freeway was completed in 1963. The sign for Plymouth reminded me of when we learned about Plymouth Rock in grade school, and the teacher asked the class if anyone knew what Plymouth Rock was. I replied that it was a rock that cars drove on - a reference to Plymouth cars. Get it?
At the merge up ahead, MA 3 ends and we pick up US 6. Then we cross the Sagamore Bridge, which opened in 1935 and crosses the Cape Cod Canal. This approach replaces a roundabout that once stood here until the mid-2000s. According to the now-outdated USGS map, only eastbound US 6 crossed the canal here, while westbound US 6 used the nearby Bourne Bridge.
Looking west on the Cape Cod Canal, the road alongside it is probably just a canal access road. The 7-mile-long waterway effectively makes Cape Cod an island - not just a peninsula. The Cape Cod Canal was completed in 1916 and widened between 1935 and 1940 - but the canal was first conceived way back in 1623.
The freeway is undivided where it uses the Sagamore Bridge. The roadway here is also interesting in that it seems to have some type of roof.
The Cape Cod Canal again. Not much to see from this perspective.
US 6 continues as a divided freeway in Cape Cod. Sandwiches are cool.
This is kind of interesting. Kind of. This is where US 6 becomes a 2-lane freeway.
MA 6A in the Cape Cod town of Truro. Before 1954, this was part of US 6.
Continuing on MA 6A. We're looking out over Cape Cod Bay. The land in the background is probably in Provincetown.
I have no idea what road this is. You can tell we're approaching the end of the Cape Cod peninsula.
I'm not sure exactly where along the end of Cape Cod this is, but I'm sure it's overlooking the Atlantic Ocean - part of Homer Simpson's "land the law forgot."
Race Point Road near the end of Cape Cod. Sesame Street has a Grover.
Yarmouth Road at MA 28 near Hyannis.
Main Street in Hyannis. For those unawares, Cape Cod is the curved peninsula of southeastern Massachusetts, and is more or less made up of Barnstable County. The government defined it as the Barnstable Town metropolitan area - named for the city of Barnstable, which was reclassed from a town in 1989. Hyannis is a part of the city and forms Cape Cod's central business district. Presumably, however, the county seat is the old village of Barnstable that is also part of the city.
This part of the trip was purely my brother's idea. Massachusetts has 2 counties that are on islands with no road access, so county collectors can't drive there. We had to take a ferry. This view from the ferry to Nantucket is of Hyannis. The most prominent building in this view is of Cape Cod Hospital, though the hosp overlaps into the town of Yarmouth. People born at that hospital don't know what city or town they were born in, because the facility straddles an administrative boundary. Kind of like someone you know, right?
A view of some sandy Hyannis shoreline. According to Google Maps, the lighthouse is called The Lighthouse! (with an exclamation point).
Another item from the "roads where there's no roads" department. The view here is probably of Dunbar Point.
The "road" to Nantucket gives us this view of Cape Cod.
Another distant view of Cape Cod. The ferry goes through Nantucket Sound. But we didn't get far enough from land to be in international waters.
This video features the sound of intelligence! Hey, when Dan Quayle did something like this, it was considered "art."
I don't know what this structure out in the middle of Nantucket Sound was.
Finally, Nantucket! I guess the string of rocks that juts into the sea is a jetty. Not Getty (as in the Getty Grouch) or Jedi (like from Star Wars), but jetty.
Birds commiserate on the jetty.
Allowed Cloud time! (I do find it interesting that there's fewer Allowed Clouds in the "big government" Northeast than in the "small government" South.) This sign was visible as we exited the ferry at Nantucket.
Yes, Nantucket has roads - but none to the mainland. This cobblestone road is Main Street at Easy Street. (I remember in my youth when a classmate said he wanted to become an artist, and the teacher lectured him about how it wasn't going to be "a life on Easy Street." Well, that teacher got into a little bit of, uh, trouble a few years later. So my school chum had the last laugh.)
Boston pops, but Nantucket looms. This is Main Street again. While I was standing here, an elderly woman emerged from Nantucket Looms and told her vacation pals, "We're gonna loom!" I bet they did! Also, it's a mystery why there's so many cars in Nantucket, considering there's no roads out of the island. From 1900 to 1918, Nantucket actually banned cars.
Liberty Street at Centre Street. Nantucket Island and a few nearby tiny islands make up the town and county of Nantucket.
Remember "the Quince, the Klugmeister"? This is Quince Street at Centre.
Upper Main Street at Milk Street.
This building on Vestal Street that looks like it's blowin' a bubble is the Maria Mitchell Observatory. Maria Mitchell was an astronomer from Nantucket. I guess they were able to build an observatory here because they didn't have to worry about a shopping center that closed at about 4 PM keeping its lights on all night.