Boston and the Cape

The U.S.S. Constitution

Andy and I absolutely loved Boston. What a fun city. We spent the two days we were there walking the Freedom Trail, which I’m sure just about every first time Boston tourist does, and had a great time looking at the old buildings and graveyards. We saw the church where the lanterns were hung to signal Paul Revere, we saw a meeting house of our forefathers, and we saw the Bunker Hill monument. Everyone knows by now that we are huge nerds so it should come to no surprise that Andy and I really enjoyed the free tour of the U.S.S Constitution; “Hizzah! Her sides are made of iron!”

The best part of the trail were all the bars along the way. We drank hard cider and Sam Adams at the oldest tavern in the States and on the way back we drank at another tavern on the opposite side of the cobblestone street. We also walked around the Beacon Hill neighborhood wishing that we were were blue bloods who could afford one of those amazing apartments. The area that was probably the most fun was the North End where we ate cannolis, espresso, and pizza slices at little Italian hole in the wall restaurants.

The old meeting house.

Boston is known as a great walking city, and for good reason. It felt like a small city, and in reality it kind of is, it’s only a little larger than Portland, Oregon. The best part of Boston was the combination of really old and brand new. We would walk by and old church or cemetery tucked away in between skyscrapers and down cobblestone sidewalks that were uneven from huge tree roots pushing upwards. We left Boston in the afternoon on our second day to find our way westward to Cape Cod and the yurt we had waiting for us in Nickerson State Park.

This was the first time that we really got up close and personal with the Eastern U.S. Coastline, if you exclude Coney

Highland Lighthouse

Island, and we loved it. The ocean is always beautiful and Cape Cod was no exception. It felt wild and unpopulated, which had to do with us visiting at the end of September when it’s a little colder and the kids back in school. We’ve heard that in the summer time the amount of people on the Cape is crazy and it is impossible and very expensive to find a place to stay overnight. The state park we stayed at is pretty centrally located and for thirty dollars a night we got a yurt with a double bed, bunk beds, a table, chairs and electricity. We thought it was a great deal.

We went to the very tip of the Cape to Provincetown where the Pilgrims first landed and lived for five weeks before the lack of freshwater forced them onward to Plymouth. There is even a huge, slightly out of place monument celebrating the pilgrims. The natural light was amazing out there, even when the clouds rolled through. The blues were bluer and the greens were greener. Everything we saw was like we were looking through a polarized lens.

The Province Lands

We explored the area and saw a few quaint lighthouses and some really large expensive looking houses (that probably used to be bed and breakfasts) and we also saw many examples of the typical Cape Cod home which consists of a rectangle base with a triangle roof with shutter accents. We ate chowder and Andy feasted on fried clams and oysters. I even got to drag Andy to a few thrift stores. It was definitely brisk outside in the evenings, but missing the crazy crowds was worth going on the cusp of the tourist season. We enjoyed two fully relaxed days and had to set off the next morning to drive the five hours home to work the Mohonk dinner shift.