Highland Lighthouse

Because Vogel was bound and determined to keep me sufficiently entertained on our trip, she came up with the idea of visiting the Highland Lighthouse, also called the Cape Cod Lighthouse or the North Truro Lighthouse. She read in a guidebook that this spot was one of Thoreau's favorites, and since she knows how much I love Thoreau, she thought (correctly) that it would be right up my alley.

Thoreau visited the lighthouse several times in the 1850s, and wrote of his visit in Cape Cod. Here's just an excerpt I've lifted from this page about the lighthouse:

"The keeper entertained us handsomely in his solitary little ocean house. He was a man of singular patience and intelligence, who, when our queries struck him, rang as clear as a bell in response. The light-house lamp a few feet distant shone full into my chamber, and made it bright as day, so I knew exactly how the Highland Light bore all that night, and I was in no danger of being wrecked... I thought as I lay there, half-awake and half-asleep, looking upward through the window at the lights above my head, how many sleepless eyes from far out on the ocean stream -- mariners of all nations spinning their yarns through the various watches of the night -- were directed toward my couch."

The nerdy nineteenth-century scholar in me got a real kick out of seeing the same view Thoreau saw and imagining him sleeping in the keeper's house. [If you're interested, you can read the entire chapter here.] The admission fee to climb to the top wasn't too bad ($4 a person). I also got a kick out of the guides--men in their 50s and 60s who were completely in love with that lighthouse. Maybe this could be a post-retirement job for my dad! Vogel and I asked them a couple of questions, and they were tripping over each other to answer us and show off which one of them had superior Highland Light knowledge. Hmmm...I take it back--maybe my dad isn't cut-throat enough for the competitive world of lighthouse guides.

Now for some pictures from our visit. First, the lighthouse from outside:



Here's one of Vogel posing for a picture. Doesn't she seem in love with the lighthouse, too? Maybe SHE has a future career as a guide???



We also snapped a couple of pictures of the stairs leading up to the top. The climb is anxiety-producing, to say the least. There are about sixty stairs and then, at the top, two very narrow ladders that you have to climb up.





Getting to the top isn't so much a physical exertion as a mental one. I was so nervous that I was going to fall and humiliate myself. In the end, though, we got to the top like pros and took some pictures of the view. You can kind of see our reflections in the pictures, but again, I think that makes the pictures even cooler, especially since the day wasn't especially clear so they needed a little something extra to make them interesting.






Okay--more later. After all, I should be using this time to finish my syllabi. Bad teacher...