Around the Cape

Our whirlwind weekend on the Cape saw much better weather on Sunday, with sunny skies albeit somewhat cooler temperatures. The kids saw this as a recipe for a return trip to the beach, but we had other ideas, and the beach was plenty windy the day before when it was warm, a cold and windy beach didn't seem that appealing.

We checked out of the Tidewater Inn after walking around the grounds a bit to see what the rest of it looked like, and in the daylight, including the indoor pool and on-site restaurant. Beth was intrigued by its potential for a mid-winter getaway for her usual Storyland crowd, something they tried last winter for the first time
with limited success. Armed with a pile of brochures and newspaper ads, we crossed from south to north to Yarmouthport and landed at the Optimist Cafe for breakfast, an 1860's era house converted into a restaurant that served up standard breakfast fare. Just down the street was the Edward Gorey house that we wanted to check out, but they didn't open until 12 and after breakfast we still had an hour to kill, so we drove back to Brewster and did a quick tour of Nickerson State Park, where Beth has been camping with the Girl Scout leaders in years past. The Cape Cod Rail Trail cuts right through it on its way from Dennis to Wellfleet, but we drove to the lake within the park and walked around a bit, Chloe was being very difficult about communing with nature so that didn't help.

So after an hour or so we headed back to Yarmouth and took a tour of the Edward Gorey house , which has only recently opened up as a museum (since he only died in 2000) and has the ultimate gift shop if you're into Edward Gorey at all. Best known for the drawings that became the opening animation for the Mystery series on PBS 20 years or so ago, he was an eccentric guy who managed to make a living producing odd illustrated stories with a certain macabre appeal. Justin remembered the Gorey calendar we had last year based on his book The Gashleycrumb Tinies, which is an alphabet primer about a group of unfortunate children who each meet with some gruesome demise (i.e. "A is for Amy who fell down the stairs").

Once we left the Gorey house it was well past lunchtime and time to start thinking about wrapping things up, but we hadn't done any souvenir shopping, so we went back to West Yarmouth and had a late lunch at Molly's Pub, which was short on ambiance and looked to be a good place to watch sports and pick up strange women, but the food was decent and reasonably priced, at least for lunch. Next door was a Cuffy's , which sells almost nothing but Cape Cod t-shirts and sweatshirts, most of which were pretty plain, but Chloe and Justin found something they liked and have been wearing them ever since. They had a deal to buy one get one free, or buy two and get 4 free, but we were hard-pressed to find four more of anything that we wanted (although Chloe would have probably been up for getting 4 of the same thing in different colors).

That was our last stop on the trip before heading back up 495 to home. We listened to the Patriots game along the way, but it was such a blowout it wasn't that interesting, and we were back at the house by 6:30 where we could finish watching the carnage on the new tv.

Down the Cape

Taking advantage of a commitment-free weekend to spend a couple of days with the family on The Cape (that's Cape Cod if you're not from around here. You can even buy a sweatshirt that just says "The Cape"). I haven't been here since Beth and I did a road trip down this way 20 years ago, although Beth has returned several times for various things with and without the kids.

We managed to leave the house on time this morning around 9am and by 11 we were over the bridge and into scenic Dennis (I didn't know your name was Dennis). It was a little early for lunch, so we browsed for a while at the Brewster Country Store, then found a restaurant just down 6A (really the only road through town) for some fish and chips. It was a bit dreary and raining off and on, although not too bad temperature-wise. Neither Dennis nor Brewster has a real downtown area, just a series of small newish strip malls and a lot of old sea captain houses that have been converted into restaurants or shops or whatever. There wasn't much traffic since it's the end of the October and the weather was iffy, so we could get around fairly handily.

After lunch we doubled back into Dennis to find Mayflower Beach, a smallish beach by Cape standards but completely empty and pretty much surf free, being on the bay side. We saw flocks of little birds (sandpipers maybe?) walking around at the edge of the water, it was high tide and a few dead horseshoe crabs had washed up on the sand. We walked up and down the beach until it started to rain, then ran for the car and headed back to Route 6 and towards Wellfleet and the national seashore.

When Beth and I drove here in her Chevette back in 1987, we left before sunrise to beat the traffic on an August weekend to celebrate our one year dating anniversary. We beat the traffic so well we were in Provincetown by 7am and nothing was open. But after we did a whale watch in the morning we wended our way back down to Harwich by way of the National Seashore, stopping at a few beaches a long the way. This time around we revisted one of those, Marconi Beach, an ocean-side beach that is miles long and also completely empty. It wasn't raining out there, after stopping at the visitors center down the road in Eastham the sun was even trying to peek out. The kids were drawn to the ocean surf even though they were fully dressed, and within about 10 minutes Chloe was wet up to her stomach and Justin was completely soaked. They were indifferent, however, and spent a good 40 minutes running in and out of the water. With no towels, changing clothes was problematic, and we didn't exactly bring much else to change into, but we managed to find something.

Since the weather was still cooperating (away from the beach it was at least 65), we still had plenty of time to look around, so we drove up a little further to the Marconi transmitter site, where the first intercontinental telegraph message was sent 100 years ago. The towers were torn down in 1920, and the location of some of them are now out at sea due to beach erosion over the years. On the other side of the parking lot is a short trail through the Cedar Swamp, which we walked around in about 45 minutes. The swamp part itself wasn't swampy, although it didn't matter since there's a boardwalk all the way around it. It's only about a mile, but it was very scenic with some of the fall colors, and nearly deserted.

Back in the car, we headed back down Route 6 to our lodging for the night at the Tidewater Inn in West Yarmouth, which took close to an hour to get to. I found this place on hotels.com for about $60 a night, although their going offseason rate was around twice that. They have a nice setup with an indoor pool and even a rec-room in the basement of the lobby with ping pong and foosball. We unloaded our stuff and found dinner down Rt 28 at the Captain Parker Pub where the kids could have pizza or chicken strips and I could still get more seafood.

We were back in the room by 7:30 to settle in before the Red Sox try to win a 3rd game against the Rockies in the World Series. How said for the younger generation that they don't know the pain of an endless drought of World Series championships, as this year's team has dominated like no other Red Sox team since they won 3 years out of 4 back in the 1910's.

Tomorrow there's several things to choose from, sunnier weather is forecast although cooler and windier, we'll see how many of them we can get done before we hit the road to reach home in time for game 4.