Anybody Need a Life Boat?
April 19, 2025 — Day 14
Kiptopeke State Park, Cape Charles, VA
We keep moving the bike rack around, if we’re not driving to a trail we put them on the back of the RV, if we’re going somewhere, we put it on the Jeep. It feels more secure since they are less visible. But this means we now had good access to the Jeep’s taillights and Paul could finally install the 4 pin trailer adapter, so we could then install the brake lights on the bike cover.
The dirty connector near the top of the photo is the original Jeep taillight harness. The pair of clean connectors (2 are unplugged on the left side of the photo, the 2nd one is still connected and hidden behind the white, yellow and green wires, are from the kit that Paul installed last year. (susan here: this is the spot where I pruned out all the talk of wires & connectors. You’re welcome.) Now the Jeep’s brakes, turn signals and hazards mimic the lights on the back of the RV!
The reason for this? The new wiring harness gives the Jeep a 4 pin trailer connector at the rear. This means we can plug in our auxiliary brake lights when we’re hauling covered bikes. Here are the new brakes lights working, and they worked the first time!
Paul wanted more crab cakes. We decided to go Cape Charles for lunch and wound up at the Cape Charles Brewing Company. They had Rockfish on the menu. Neither of us had heard of it so we did a quick internet search where we learned it tastes like cod. Paul got the Crab Cake sandwich, Susan had the Rockfish Fish and Chips which was the only option for fish. She hated it. This meant Paul had two lunches although he left almost all the french fries (it was a ridiculous amount). Susan ordered wings which were very good. The Crab Cakes were only so-so and the Rockfish seemed oily. Susan thought it tasted fishy. The judges give it a 6 out of 10. We probably won’t go back to that place.
On the way up we saw a field of brilliant yellow flows in a field. We had driven by that same field yesterday, they were not in bloom. We passed a few more and got this great photo. They really were that bright. (susan here: it was eye-poppingly bright yellow!)
After lunch it was time for some bird watching! We were both a little tired from the previous days rides and wanted a break. We were here to see birds too, not just bike. Paul found a nearby spot where they had a viewing platform right at the parking lot!
We didn’t see too many birds but did enjoy the ones we did see. Our thought is we’re about 7-10 days early for the height of migration season. We also got one Life Bird, the Laughing Gull. Now this is a pretty common bird and we’ve seen and heard it a million times in Provincetown, but they are very similar to the Franklin’s Gull. Note to the non-birders: Gulls are awful to identify. They have so many similarities they are actually quite difficult to identify. Worse they have plumage that changes as they mature. It’s a bit of a nightmare to identify them. Paul got some good photos which made us certain of the ID. Of course he deleted all those photos since we didn’t need them anymore, sorry blog readers!
On the drive back, just seconds from the parking lot, we came across 3 White Ibis. Susan had seen about 20 of these on somebody’s lawn on the way in but couldn’t get an ID. Here’s her iPhone photo!
Finally, on the way out of town we came across the Maritime Institute which had a full size lifeboat in the front yard!
Lifebirds: 1 (Laughing Gull)