This Spring Break we decided that we'd go to Cape Cod. And I have to say we picked the three best weather days of the whole week. We went Wednesday-Friday, April 20-22. We left
Glenville at 9:30 AM - had a short detour to the Donut Dip in Springfield, Ma and arrived in
Falmouth at about 2:00 PM. We stayed in
Falmouth at the Inn On The Square. It was a beautiful old inn. We had to wait until 3:00 PM to check-in, so we ate our lunch on a little patio there and then went and walked around the town. It is a quaint little village with a village green and many cute shops on Main street. We went to the Visitor's Center and they suggested going to
Spohr Gardens. They have thousands of daffodils throughout the garden that were blooming or just ready to bloom.
After the gardens we went to the Nobska lighthouse.
As you can see from the picture it was a foggy day. We got to see the lighthouse, and because it was foggy at the time the fog horn was going. How
cliché! That night we went out to eat, and guess what we got? Sea food! Glen and I shared a lobster roll and shrimp and scallops. It was yummy. Lauren got cheese ravioli - she's not a sea food person. Then it was swimming in the hotel pool, and cable TV in the room.
Thursday we rode our bikes to the bus stop that took us to the ferry. The bus had a bike rack on the front for our bikes. We caught the 9:30 AM ferry to Martha's
Vineyard. We were the last to load because they put our bikes on after all the other vehicles were loaded. It took about 45 minutes to get there. It was a beautiful day so we spent most of the time outside on the deck of the ferry.
I was amazed to watch them load semi-trucks, UPS trucks, and all kinds of vehicles onto the ferry. It took many more vehicles that I would ever have imagined. You can imagine our surprise when the first people we spotted as we came into the passenger area of the ferry were two Mormon missionaries. They serve on Martha's Vineyard. They said there is a branch with about 20 people there. It was fun to chat with them. They were from Mexico and Portugal.
The ferry docks in
Vineyard Haven. From there we set out to bike the 2.5 miles to the East Chop lighthouse. From there we biked about 2 miles to Oak Bluffs. It is a beautiful old town with cool houses around a big green. In the town we went to a carousel called the Flying Horses. It is the oldest operating platform carousel in the United States.
We all went on it. It was the first time I've been on a carousel where you actually got to grab for the brass ring. Every time you went around there was a machine that dispensed a ring. There was only one brass ring - the person who got that got to ride again for free.
There was a dowel on the horses head where you could stack all the rings you got. Then when the ride stopped you threw all of your rings into the collection bin. It was amusing.
We then rode another 6+ miles to
Edgartown. Along the way we stopped and went to the beach because it was really close to the road. Notice that we're all in long pants and jackets. While it was sunny it wasn't warm. When we got to
Edgartown it was time for lunch and we found a cute little restaurant called Among the Flowers. Glen and I split a yellow tailed flounder sandwich. We also had the best clam chowder ever. Lauren still wouldn't have sea food, so she got a fantastic fruit
crepé. How do I know it was fantastic - because both Glen and I had bites. After riding to the
Edgartown lighthouse and around the town for awhile we caught the bus back to
Vineyard Haven. It was so nice because by that time both Lauren and I were a little saddle sore. The bus had a bike rack on the front that you could put three bikes in. Fortunately there were only the three of us, so it worked beautifully.
Back in Vineyard Haven we decided to ride to the West Chop lighthouse. It was about another 4 mile ride, so we figure we probably rode at least 15 miles in all that day.
And then it was time to go back to
Falmouth. It was a little colder on the way back, so we spent most of our time inside the ferry.
On Friday we drove up the cape to
Provincetown. Along the way we stopped at the Cape Cod National Sea Shore Salt Pond Visitor's Center. We had a nice ride out to Coast Guard Beach. Then we continued up toward the outer cape. We went to Race Point Beach at the very tip of the cape. We could see the Race Point lighthouse from the beach. We spent a half-hour or more watching all the whales just off the shore. We had binoculars and a spotting scope so we could see them really well. It was awesome to see so many whales in one place.
The we continued into
Proviencetown. This picture is of the Pilgrim Monument. In 1620, the Pilgrims spent five weeks exploring Cape Cod before they sailed to Plymouth, MA. It actually has gargoyle rain spouts on it. We thought that was kind of funny.
When we got there we were ready for lunch. When we were trying to find parking we saw a bunch of people lined up at the Red Shack getting food so we decided we'd go there. Glen and I got amazing lobster rolls, and once again Lauren didn't eat sea food. She had a huge chicken
parm sandwich. We also had some fantastic onion rings. Yummy!
We walked out to the end of the pier. In the summer I'm sure it's filled with people selling things. But since it is still off-season, there weren't many little shops open yet. But in the town pretty much everything was open. After walking around town for a while we got ice cream at Lewis Brothers homemade ice cream. It was yummy! Then it was time to head home - a six+ hour car ride. But it was
sooooo worth it!
We decided that we left plenty of things undone in Cape Cod so we'll just have to go back another time. Oh darn!
Of course we had to have the sugar cookies shaped like ghosts, bats, and pumpkins too!
I know it doesn't look like Glen is watching "Ghostbusters",
Jenny and Lauren carving pumpkins. They were very creative. Lauren made hers look like a pineapple, and Jenny used the seeds from inside to make hers have teeth.
This is the one Michelle made.
We hope your Halloween was as fun as ours!
Making strawberry jam takes almost a whole day. We left at 8:15 am to go to the berry farm and pick our 12 quarts of strawberries. Yes, it was hot and muggy, and the berries were tiny. The farm worker said that they'd had a lot of people pick the day before and they'd gotten all the big berries, so that made it take a little longer than normal. That and the fact that we were down to just Lauren and I doing the picking. Then we had to go buy the sugar and pectin. Then it was home to cut up, mash, and make the strawberry jam. We made ten batches of jam. In the middle of making it Lauren had to leave to take a Regents exam so it took me a little longer to finish since I was working alone.
