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| Sunrise in Chatham |
But this summer my son, who lives in Berkeley, was attending a wedding in Wellfleet on the Cape. So for convenience we rented a house in nearby Chatham, and my older son, who also lives in Berkeley joined us. Full family of four fiesta!
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| Franky, age 2 and a half |
We have been taking the boys to Maine since they were babies, and they quickly developed a taste for lobster. We told them they had to, or they could no longer be part of our family. We spent a week in Maine when they were 5 and 2 and a half and according to my journal we had lobster 6 out of 7 nights. “They love lobster. Peter likes the body meat. Franky likes the tail.” That’s the way we used to roll, or lobster roll.
But now my sons are vegetarian.
New England restaurants with names like The Captain's Table, or the Impudent Oyster do not cater to vegetarians. They had to ask for several adjustments to the menu throughout the week. Like a BLT without the B. Or sausage gnocchi without the sausage. We had the wait staff picking so much meat out of our orders that they may as well have been shelling lobster.
We were dubious about Cape Cod as opposed to Maine. So we set out to answer the questions, Why isn't Cape Cod as good as Maine? Or, Why is Maine better than Cape Cod?
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| Upside down house |
We rented a house from Pretty Picky Properties. Yes, the real name. I was tired of searching on VRBO and Airbnb for residential properties, full of personal chotskies. Instead I found a pure rental property. Not Auntie Margaret’s ancestral home. Not “the house that’s been in our family for generations but a couple of weeks a year we rent it to losers like you.” So the house felt like a long-stay hotel freshly painted, clean, spacious, and well maintained, but without a drop of personality.
The other problem was that the house was upside down. The kitchen, dining room and family room were on the second floor. Two of the three bedrooms were on the first floor. We often wondered where we were. Wait, I have to go upstairs to get coffee?
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| Ridgevale Beach |
But the house's primary attraction was the location-- a 5-minute walk to the beach. You could pop up in the morning and walk to Ridgevale Beach on the Nantucket Sound for sunrise and watch seagulls slicing across the sky like javelins. The weather was perfect all week.
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| Nauset Light Beach |
After picking up Franky in Wellfleet, we stopped at Nauset Light Beach, part of the Cape Cod National Seashore. Straight-up roaring Atlantic ocean for 40 protected miles.
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| Seal with a blubber bite |
The Monomoy Island Excursion Seal Cruise took us to a sand bar with hundreds of seals lounging in the sun. The skipper and his matey taught us some fun seal facts—they have to eat 10 to 15 pounds a day; some of them had visible scars from the great white shark who also likes summering in Cape Cod. The seal survives a brush with a shark because it has three inches of blubber fat to bite through. Sometimes Jaws just doesn’t have the time or energy.
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| Monomoy Island has 30,000-50,000 gray seals |
Did I tell you the weather was perfect?
After the cruise we were as hungry as seals, so we went to lunch at nearby Brax Landing overlooking the harbor from which we had overlooked the shore. There we learned that you can’t carry a yeti bottle into a bar. (A Yeti walks into a bar...) My son was carrying one full of water, but the hostess told us that some rascals fill their Yeti's with booze and then blame the restaurant for their subsequent drunk driving offenses.
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| Striped and seaworthy |
They don't make it easy to find The Morris Island Loop part of the Monomoy National Wildlife Reserve. Its trailhead is inside a gated community with a private sign at its entrance. Locals assured us these signs were “misleading” and that the public has full access.
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| Provincetown |
We made a day trip to Provincetown! It’s amusing and it’s loud and there are good vibes all day long. Clothing and art shops managed by attentive and humorous gay men, alongside live cabaret shows and sex shops. In other words, it’s as great as everyone says it is.
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| Fiddler Crab |
We went to the Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. Five trails lead you through panoramic salt marshes, and sea grass, and tidal pools. Despite the Audubon name, we saw no birds of note, but we spent a long time watching fiddler crabs pop up and down out of the sand. They are damn weird looking with their disproportionately large claw. They look like pitchers with lopsided sized arms.
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| Denny on "his" beach in Wellfleet |
We visited our friends Denny and Sandy who had rented a spectacular house in Wellfleet, atop a bluff overlooking a very angry Atlantic Ocean, throwing its weight around with huge surf.
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| Italian Wedding Cake at Bucas' |
Our favorite restaurant was Bucas' Tuscan Roadhouse in Harwich. It is dark and cozy and friendly, and we were swept into a food coma on clouds of creamy goat cheese, hot crusty bread, nutty pesto, and bruschetta. We went back for more two nights later.
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| Wild Goose Tavern |
Best strawberry rhubarb pie: Marion's Pie Shop. Best ice cream: Schoolhouse Ice Cream. The portions are so large it's like getting served by the cafeteria lady who likes you best. Best brunch: Liz's Café in Provincetown, good lunches at the Blue Willow in Wellfleet, and the Wild Goose Tavern in Chatham.
Franky told Siri to take us out for the nicest breakfast on the Cape on our way to the airport, and she/he/it decided on Will & Co. Cafe in Plymouth. Best coffee: bottomless cups of Witches Brew, a dark roast. We reviewed the week and came back to the original question about Maine vs Cape Cod. Admittedly Cape Cod has many of the same charms as Maine. But we agreed that Maine is cozier, homier, more down to earth, less crowed, and more welcoming (well, a little).
But the number one reason Cape Cod is not as good as Maine is because Cape Cod is not Maine.
But thanks Cape Cod, we had a great time!
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| Sunset in Chatham |
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