Wednesday: Woke up quite early. Breakfast wasn’t served until 8:00, but they had promised “coffee always” and they had a Keurig set up. I went down there around 7:00 and … well, the Keurig was there, but no takeout cups or creams. Damn. So I liberated some teabags and went back upstairs. The kitchenette does have a coffeemaker, but I didn’t have any ground coffee or milk. Tea, you just microwave a mug. (I know, I can hear my Brits shrieking, “never microwave tea”, but these are emergency conditions. I like tea just fine and I don’t put milk in it, so good to go.)
Got showered, went to breakfast around 8:30, typical B&B breakfast. Had a very nice omelet with toast and finally some coffee (and cranberry juice – something I drink all the time, but hadn’t had since the vacation started).
DId some perusing of the guidebook and my “Greater Cape Cod Bucket List” book, made a tentative plan. First off to Yarmouth to see the “sand sculpture trail“. I’d pictured this as being like in a park on a beach, and you walked around and looked at all the sculptures, but nope – the sculptures are scattered around town in parking lots and such (including the parking lot of the Visitor’s Center, where I got the scoop on this and picked up a map). So I hoped I could just drive around and see them. I wasn’t very successful at this – to do it right, I would have had to pull into every parking lot with a sculpture, look at it, and then figure out exactly where the next one was. As it was, just driving, I had to keep my eye on the road and look at the map and look out the window to spot them. I only saw a few. I didn’t see a reason to be more thorough about it, so moved onto the next part of the plan.
Up to Brewster to Drummer Boy Park, also listed in my Bucket List book. I didn’t even remember why I’d flagged it, mostly because I enjoy walking around any park (or college campus), one of my favorite things to do. It was cloudy and overcast, kind of gloomy but the park is charming. There’s an old windmill and some other old buildings which you can go in if you’re there at the right time (I wasn’t), and a really great playground and a gazebo and a nice little nature walk to look out over the marsh towards the water. Exactly the sort of relaxing ‘let’s just putz around and walk’ experience that this vacation is about, for me.
Then off to Chatham. First to the lighthouse at the ‘corner’ of Cape Cod. The lighthouse itself, on the grounds of a Coast Guard facility, isn’t that impressive, but who doesn’t like a lighthouse? The land itself is apparently where the Mayflower either tried to land or landed temporarily. Walked around, looked out at the water, saw the “Seaman’s Cemetery”, took pictures (which will be added here eventually).
Then to Main Street Chatham to walk around and shop. This was pretty upscale, fancy tchotchke shops and clothing stores and such. I’d already bought t-shirts in MV and Nantucket, and will get one in Provincetown, but was waffling about getting a generic “Cape Cod” one… and then decided to get a baseball cap instead. The one I got has no letters, just a map of Cape Cod, very cool.
I also went in a very impressive candy store with the thought of getting something small for the room, but was like ‘nope nope nope’. I feel about candy stores the way I feel about bookstores, they’re actually kind of overwhelming and you just want everything. So walked out and headed to the Goose for lunch.
One thing I do on vacation is monitor my vegetable intake, because unless I’m paying attention, it’s very easy to just not eat any and then you end up feeling gross. So I’d saw they had some nice salads, but it was kind of chilly, so ended up getting an ‘autumn soup’ which was very vegetable-y and quite tasty, plus a couple of crabcakes and a cider. That was a really nice meal. By then, of course, I’d already decided I had to go back to the candy store, so I did and bought 4 truffles – 2 peppermint, 1 Bailey’s, 1 Kahlua. Ate one of the peppermints right away, and then back to the car and back to the room.
My dear friend Susanna and I had scheduled a phone call – she and her husband had been to C’s funeral, and then almost immediately left on a lovely and long European vacation. So they’re back now and we talked for over an hour about both our trips, how I’m holding up, the state of the world, all that. Picking up a tradition I used to have back in my single days, I’ll be spending Thanksgiving with them in Rochester, so that will be nice.
After the phone call, I dressed a little nicer and decided to go see Hyannis, maybe having dinner afterward. I got to Hyannis Main Street about 4:45 or so, and I figured I’d first pick up a mocha and then walk Main Street. Well, I walked Main Street and there were no coffee places except breakfast cafes that were already closed. WTF? Not a huge deal, but… so I did see Main Street, the fancy section and the more hip tattoo-y section, then went down to the harbor, seeing the artist’s shanties on the way, and took some pictures. I was surprised that there wasn’t more ‘stuff’, but I wasn’t really interested in going to the JFK museum or anything like that.
I’d spied what looked like a very traditional American Italian restaurant on the way in, DiPalma’s, so stopped there for an early dinner on the way back. Good thing I stopped in early, that place filled up. It was pretty much exactly what I was expecting, foodwise, which was fine. I had a couple of glasses of wine (me to myself, “You are DRIVING, watch it!” “Oh, I’ll be fine, it’s not that far.”), a nice little salad and a chicken broccoli ziti dish in a parmesan sauce. Looked at the dessert menu, but was too full, and I knew I had those chocolates back in the room.
Drove back, very carefully, and did my typical evening chilldown with news-and-knitting, then an episode of Drag Race.
Today I thought it was going to be rainy all day, but what it is is windy right now, then rainy later. So I’m going to go out and hit some antique shops, then go to the Gorey House, then get lunch and spend the afternoon with the fireplace turned on (you just hit a switch!), reading. If I pick up a pizza, maybe I’ll have half for dinner and won’t even have to go out again!
The Toast Point Page 