Cape Cod: Days 1 & 2

The first stop on our New England road trip was Cape Cod. Nearly the entire way up to the Cape, it rained. And not just a sprinkle. It rained sheets, buckets, cats & dogs. Not a fortuitous start to to our trip...especially since we were going to be camping the first two nights. Luckily, the rain disappeared, leaving behind beautiful skies, such as those seen in the picture below taken on Nauset Light beach on the Cape Cod National Seashore.

It was a little too chilly for swimming, but it was nice to walk around. The expanse of the ocean is something I never get tired of. And we spotted a seal off shore. It was a beautiful scene of blues and white, with the brown sand serving as the perfect contrast. And up the dunes were a couple of houses perfectly reminiscent of those that appear in paintings by Edward Hopper.

The lighthouse below lends its name to the beach above. After visiting the beach, Jeff and I headed down to the tip of the Cape, to Provincetown, for the evening. In a word, P-town (as the locals call it), is flamboyant. Rainbow flags arch across the street (is it ironic that we saw a real rainbow right out over the harbor?), galleries show off bold artwork, and transvestites strut down the streets just begging for you to stare. We had an entertaining time people watching. Dinner wasn't particularly memorable, but the malasadas we had after dinner were perfectly sweet and hot out of the grease.

With the rain completely gone, we had a good night's sleep in our tent...the tent that looked so terribly tiny compared to nearly everyone else's set up. We have a backpacking tent. A small structure that weights just a couple of pounds, which can be put up in a mere minute, which you cannot even begin to think about standing up in, and which has just the right amount of room for Jeff and I and nothing else. Everyone else at this campground had tents as our big as our living room, tents that had rooms, tents that connected to other tents through tunnels. Tents for eating in and tents for sleeping in and tents for just hanging out in. And that's not even to start in on the RVs...oh dear lord. This was our first experience car camping (versus backwoods camping), and it was an education.

Anyhow, we spent our second day on the Cape in the saddle, bike saddle that is. The Cape Cod Rail Trail runs 22 miles and takes you past freshwater ponds, beaches, farmer's markets and through some of the Cape's towns. It was a good way to get a look at the Cape while enjoying the beautiful weather.

The entire trail was very idyllic. I mean, how rough can life be while sitting in an Adirondack chair next to your sailboat on the edge of a lovely pond, perhaps enjoying a view of lovely waterlilies?

After our bike ride (which included a really delicious lunch of a crabcake sandwich and a curry chicken wrap from a place called Blue Willow), we grabbed ice cream at JT's. I was struck by the sheer number of ice cream joints on the Cape. It was wild. I don't think there's that many ice cream shops in Florida, or somewhere with a much longer ice cream season. (I do think there might, however, be more Cape Cod style houses in Florida (or anywhere else) than there are on Cape Cod. That was another thing that struck me. How did that style of house come to be called a Cape Cod when there aren't even that many on the Cape? Hmmm?).

Ok...back to the topic at hand. We spent the afternoon at the Cape Cod League baseball game, and then grabbed dinner at a place in Chatham called Kreme & Kone. The name isn't very revealing, as it's actually a place to get heaping plates of fried seafood. Jeff had a clam strip platter and I had a fish sandwich. Thank God I passed on the platter, because Jeff's came with a mountain of onion rings and fries that was more than enough for the two of us. Mmm, mmm fried goodness. And yes, it was good, but I'm pretty sure I could feel my arteries clogging with each bite.

How I went to sleep with all that in my stomach is a mystery I can't explain, but we again slept well (I've yet to have a bad night in the tent...it's kind of surprising but I sleep like a baby whenever we camp), and then headed out the next day, destination Vermont.