Cape Cod Day 2

The beaches of Cape Cod and P-Town: Tuesday July 12, 2016
After a sexy evening of bright stars, shimmering pond water and a bright half moon, we awoke early, ready to start our explorations.  

By 9AM after a family breakfast of oatmeal and pop-tarts, I loaded the bikes up on Ivanka and we headed to the beaches.  

We arrived at Nauset Beach around 9:30. As we arrived, i noticed a Park Ranger tower at the parking lot.  Upon reviewing the prices we noticed that it was TWENTY dollars for a SINGLE DAY, allowing access to ALL the NPS beaches on the cape.  There are six beaches on the cape, all the way to Provincetown approx 40 miles north, which was our destination. 

Jen didn't want to spend the money, but this time I made a command decision and bought a pass. We didn't come on vacation to be misers of money and not go to beaches on Cape Cod. This decision proved to be useful once we tried to find parking in P-town. 

Nauset beach was strange (to us, who are spoiled with glistening white sandy beaches). As we worked our way down the cliff bluff steps we made it to the bottom; brown grainy sand filled with STONES of multiple colors, some flat, some round, quartz, and other river type rock.  We were weirded out by that as we're used to fine grain and seashells. I guess people collect rocks here. 

Macro of Sand on Nauset Beach-colorful

Stone Mix

Avery liked this one--came home with us

Nauset Beach lighthouse as we left

GT wearing his shoes on this 'sand'

not pictured-purple flag warning of Great White sharks!

Of all the beaches we visited, Nauset was our favorite beach area.  As expected, they were all pretty much the same as far as texture, hiking, great white shark warnings, don't hang out with Seal warnings, and cold ass Atlantic Ocean water. One thing I remembered was the smell of Nauset beach. I think that the Atlantic Ocean has a differing smell to it, a salty oceanic smell, that is not exactly similar to our local Gulf of Mexico.  This smell brought back olfactory memories, ones of being a child and going to the 'shore'--places like Atlantic City, Shipbottom, and Ocean City when, as a youth I lived in Pennsylvania. Those smells were wonderful to me as it reminded me of a much simpler time. 

We spent about 20-30 minutes on similar beaches on the way as we were eager to get to Provincetown (P-town). One of the beaches near p-town was behind a state park? campground? type place with the coolest looking cedar? trees I've seen. I regret not taking a pic of these.  

We stopped at the NPS visitor center in Ptown. We learned a lot about maritime history of the island, and of course, where the pilgrims landed before Plymouth. As we climbed the staircase we got to the observation deck. Jen brought the binoculars once again in search of Whales, who seem to love the cape above P-town. None were seen today unfortunately. 

We gathered our info we needed and headed to the town. Provincetown is very hilly. Provincetown also has multiple men. Holding hands. Dressed in thong undies and tank tops. Yes, Provincetown is a gay community. We noticed this as we searched everywhere for a place to park. As we got closer to city center parking was $15! No thanks.  This is the reason we bought a park pass and bicycles. We parked about three miles away at the Herring cove parking lot and rode to town. Win, on the pass purchase! The streets were narrow, with multiple parallel parked cars, however, I wasn't overly worried about riding these streets because not everyone was in a rush, and all the guys were so nice :)

Famished after stopping at all the beaches, we stopped at P-town house of Pizza before going to the Pilgrim Tower. Very good pizza. We shared a supreme taco pizza and Avery (big gurl) ate all her toppings without taking anything off. 

We loaded up our water bottles with very cold water from the soda fountain and headed out. It was a little hard to navigate, other than the 253 ft tower sticking up in the middle of town. "there's big ben, kids". 

After a week of 50-65 degree temps, the mercury finally rose in P-town. A beautiful 83 degree day as we ascended on the tower grounds. We purchased museum tickets which came free with climb the tower tickets. 

The Provincetown pilgrim early history museum was very informative. We all learned about the whaling industry, the pilgrims, and, interesting to me, a british warship from 1748 the HMS Somerset that sunk off the coast in 1778 during the revolution only to be unearthed by differing currents in the 1970's and again, most recently in 2011. I found this to be most intriguing. Can't help but think I'm walking down a beach and whoa--check that out-wonder what that is--oh it's just a 1750's British Warship--go about your business as usual.  I also like to think this kind of thing could happen to our Gulf coast with its rich histories and walk up on a 1500's spanish galleon or something.  Really makes your mind wander. A little wiki info here: HMS Somerset resurfaces

Not long after it was picture time and time to climb another set of stairs. YAY. I'm glad that we previously walked about 50 miles up and down hills and in metro cities before taking this one, i really am. 

This monument, unlike Plymouth Rock did NOT disappoint.  I took pics out of all the windows I could find, for differing views of the harbor, the end of the cape, and the beauty of P-town.  Once again there were huge cemeteries dotting the landscape.  Afterward, we all had power drinks and coffee drinks. I even managed a catnap, where Jen left me alone for a few minutes to take my pic. 

Iced coffee didn't work

Avery looking out

The view from the top of P-town

Jen Posing

Us

Stairs and ramps

harbor from Pilgrim Tower

Avery with Pilgrim Tower

Whale Search from NPS observatory deck

framed pic

fruitless whale search today

From the tower, I noticed the commerce Main street, which we attended after leaving the monument.  After grabbing a Cape Cod shirt for Grammy, and Avery grabbing some jewelry and checking out some photo galleries, we rode 'toward' the car--or so I thought, only to go about a mile off course.  Eventually we found our way using actual street signs (not google bitty--out batteries were low) and we fought the wind, changed lanes improperly and made it back for the long but beautiful ride to the campground where we retired early, excited for the finale trip to NYC and Croton Point tomorrow.