| What we did Presidents’ Day weekend
Well, we went to Falmouth, on Cape Cod, which is our usual first choice getaway place. It’s about an hour and a half from home and has lots of kinds of outdoors. Falmouth is at the southwestern corner of the Cape, between Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound. It includes Woods Hole, home of the famous Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, which is where you get the ferry for Martha’s Vineyard. We didn’t go to the Vineyard this time. We left home after work and got in to the Ramada Inn just before the restaurant closed. Someone was playing the guitar in a store window across the street, and when we finished dinner we walked over and peeked in. Food For Thought, a little restaurant and catering business over there, was having a coffeehouse, the first in years, but we didn’t stay (and you thought, maybe there’s a sound file hiding here somewhere! Sorry.) Arlene did catch a glimpse of the breakfast menu, and we determined to go back in the morning. It was the place to be that morning! Or maybe they just weren’t quite up to the crowd that had come to the cape because of the coincidence of Valentine’s Day and school vacation week. Whatever the reason, it was packed, and the food was a great combination of hearty and veggie-aware. I had a linguicia-onion-pepper omelet with toast and home fries. Linguicia (lin-gwee-see) is a spicy Portugese sausage that’s easy to find anywhere between New Bedford and Provincetown, the two big fishing ports on the south side of Massachusetts, and chances are I’m going to find some when I’m on the Cape. (Did you check out that link? It’s bizarre -- there’s no address nor back links on it. I have no idea if that restaurant is on the other side of Newton or across the country.) We hopped in the car and crawled through traffic(but NOTHING like summer traffic) through Falmouth and on out route 28 to Wellfleet and our number one favorite spot on the Cape, the Mass. Audubon Society’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.We took our time walking out to Try Island, where there was a big red-tail hawk in a tree not the least bit concerned that we were 30 yards away, and out the boardwalk to the shore of the bay. I guess those big black things out in the bay weren’t really whales, but I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t mention that it was cold, did I? Right around freezing most of the day, and there was a good wind chill standing on the shore. We were happy to get into the building again, and then we headed further north on route 6 to Highland Light, where we had seen a flock of snow buntings about this time last year (or was it the year before?). They weren’t there this time, but enough tree sparrows were to make it interesting. Even that huge breakfast had worn off by 4:30, and we stopped in downtown Wellfleet (there’s a whole block of stores on one side of the street) in the Lighthouse Cafe and had good charbroiled burgers and soup (clam chowder for Arlene, Portugese kale soup for me. Go with the local specialties, we say.) The decor of the Lighthouse lived up to its name, with photos and paintings of local lighthouses all over. We hadn’t known that Chatham Light used to have two towers and that one of them had been moved to become Nauset Light, but there was the photo to prove it. Back in Falmouth (but we took the Mid-Cape Highway back) we stopped at Ocean State Job Lot, a bargain-hunter’s paradise, and got obsolescent computer books, two Vellux blankets, lots of Burpee’s seeds at 40% off, .... One of the computer books is Web Concept and Design That’s the best link on this page -- take a look. But frankly, I learned more from Robin Williams’ The Non-Designer’s Web Book. Cape Cod tourism links, mostly very slow downloading:
Cape Cod Best Guide |