Our Cape Cod Vacation

It's been a great week, now it's time to wind down and get ready to once again face the work a day world...but instead of gearing up for work...I find myself wanting to review the week that was...


Last week at this time we had finished visiting  Hammond Castle in Gloucester Massachusetts. It was a wonderful place that made me wish that I had lived in a time when I could have been a princess...The man was sure that this would not be a favorite on the vacation itinerary, but when all is said and done...it still comes up as one of his favorites.  What is not to like about a castle with a draw gate, that was once housed a secret laboratory and has a central court yard with an eight foot pool?  The exterior views of the harbor were just as stunning as the interior.  I took hundreds of pictures over the week and this is my favorite of Hammond Castle.  It's a picture of the pool in the center courtyard from the his and hers bedroom.  The secret laboratory was just below.  If your in Gloucester check out Hammond Castle.

Being fugal Mainers we packed our lunch for Sunday and discovered Stage Fort Park in Gloucester, MA. We visited "Tablet Rock", saw beautiful vista's of the Gloucester harbor and ate our picnic  lunch looking over the breakwater, in the sunshine, which had been missing from our lives for over a week.

Gloucester Harbor from in back of Tablet Rock

 While we were eating lunch, we heard cannon fire (once you have heard cannons fire you will always recognize the sound of cannons.   As it was Mother's day we decided what a fitting salute to all mothers to have the firing of cannons.  Guess what? We were wrong the cannons being fired were for two schooners heading out to sea.  We wished that we had planned to stay overnight in Gloucester, MA so that we would have had more time to explore, however we had reservations in Hyannis so down the road we traveled. 


Now this was the scariest part of our trip,I drove down route 93 through the "big dig Tunnel" until we reached Route 3 which carried us out onto Cape Cod.  Why? You asked did we go this way?  Because we do not own a GPS (again the independent Mainer streak shows).  Who really needs an GPS in Maine?  Besides where is the adventure of a road trip if you don't get lost and discover new territory?  Do you know that it is dark in tunnels even on a bright Sunday afternoon? Add to the fact that some of those drivers go like " a bat out of HE double hockey sticks".  Well at least we know my heart is good for at least another 6 weeks. 


Wayne's only comment about this part of the trip is "A couple of times scenes from my life started to play before my eyes, these scenes were quickly replaced by the frightening flashes of red tail lights and blaring auto horns."


We arrived in Hyannis, MA, all in one piece and happy to have made a reservation at the Days Inn Days Inn, Hyannis.  Days Inn was really easy to locate.  The hotel was very clean, there was a pool and hot tub, was located right on route 132 and was therefore close to a lot of restaurants and mall type shopping.  This was not downtown quaint Hyannis, but met our needs after a day of travel.  The bed was comfortable and we slept well. Breakfast while free, was various toasted items, muffins, cold cereal and two hot items (pancakes and scrambled eggs)


After a refreshing swim we decided to go light on dinner and at the suggestion of the "hotel pool attendant" tried Scotties Famous Pizza.  The pizza was really good.  There is not much of a seating area..but we enjoyed the local's watching TV and having a family Mother's day dinner (with 4 active kids I'd be happy with pizza too!)


Our first stop in Hyannis was Englewood beach, where we just happened to be in time to see the Ferries to Natucket and Martha's Vineyard. Here there were locals sitting.  You could just about hear their laughter as I got out and took pictures.  I love playing tourist!  We also spent some early morning time (before 10 AM) on Main Street/South Main Street a one way circle. We saw the village green, JFK Hyannis Museum, the Library and Post office.  Very quaint New England village, as we come from from New England this really wasn't where we wanted to spend our day.  So after utilizing the public bathrooms (which were really clean) we moved along.  

JFK statue at JFK Hyannis Museum

Now here is the part that is hard to admit, but the traffic circle of 132, Falmouth Road and Lyannough Road, kept sucking us in...it was like a vortex..we kept ending up there (remember no GPS).  A couple of time we just went around, trying to get our bearings (Wayne hates going all the way around a rotary).  Leaving Hyannis instead of getting on 28 heading to South Yarmouth we ended up heading to Centerville.  


Our trip to Centerville , which was not planed but was a result of the great rotary vortex, gave us the chance to see Craigsville Beach.  It was beautiful and the first of the sandy shores of Cape Cod that we actually got out and walked around.  Here we actually got to experience the long stretches of sandy shore that are so unusual in Maine.

Craigsville Beach, Centerville, MA

 So now we were heading to Provincetown out route 28.  All the beautiful Beaches, all the sights to see I truly understand how you can spend weeks touring Cape Cod..but we were people with a mission get to Provincetown,so down the road we traveled.  We used the road maps in the Massachusetts-Cape Code Travel guide.  Maps do work well and even allowed us to locate the town landing in Dennis Port, which was not well signed and truly allowed us a local flavor to our trip.

View from Public Boat Launch in Dennis Port

Sitting at the public boat launch in Dennis Port, I'm going to have to leave you..until I can finish.  Dinner needs to be cooked, clothes need to be laid out for tomorrow's adventure ...