9/19/18 Nickerson State Park, MA to South Dennis, MA

Today's plan was to ride from Nickerson State Park south to the end of the Cape Cod Rail Trail in South Dennis. The weather is kind of "wetting", not quite raining but fairly consistent heavy mist. Since the weather was fairly warm and the trail appeared to have heavy tree cover, we decided to ride in spite of the weather.

We've also run into another issue... Since there are no electrical hookups at any campsites within Nickerson State Park, we couldn't recharge our bike batteries. In fact, it's become clear to us that we're going to have to address this as the van can barely support the electric refrigerator overnight, particularly with this inclement weather.

Leslie had enough battery life left, but Paula opted not to carry any batteries at all, and did today's ride unassisted. At least she never got cold!

If we visit the Cape again, we might look into staying at Atlantic Oaks RV Resort in Eastham, which has electrical hookups and, like Nickerson, has direct trail access. On the other hand, Nickerson is gorgeous and at this time of the year, completely empty during the week. It also has miles of paved trails completely within the park.

On this short leg of the trail there are no less than three bike shops. Of course we stopped in all three and got t-shirts from two of them, The Rail Trail Bike Shop in Brewster and Barb's Bike Shop in S. Dennis.

This section of the trail ends abruptly in S. Dennis with road blocks, and there is more paved trail beyond the blocks. Apparently, still under construction although a local cyclist just ignored the barriers and kept going. As visitors, we were not so emboldened.

There is also a trail rotary where the Cape Cod Rail Trail intersects with the Old Colony Rail Trail in Harwich. Old Colony goes east from Harwich to the town of Chatham.