Thursday, May 14, 2015

DREAM VACATION IN MASSACHUSETTS, DAY 4

Hard to believe it was already Wednesday. Except for the chain of events that happened late in the afternoon on Tuesday, we were having a fabulous time. It is good that all four of us love "history" because we were certainly getting plenty of it. We were also seeing plenty of evidence of spring especially on Cape Cod. We were also meeting some of the nicest and helpful people. In fact, we only had one less than pleasant encounter the whole week. It was with an attendant in the T who apparently wasn't having a good day. He eventually came out and helped us with the purchase of our subway ticket, but he wasn't very happy doing so. Even the drivers were courteous. When the traffic was heavy, a driver would blink his/her headlights to signal you could pull out. 

After "sleeping in" and eating breakfast at the cottage, my husband called Budget to tell them about the tire and ask what they wanted us to do. We were told to take the car to Hyannis and trade it in for another one. When we had to cut our loop around Cape Cod short on Monday because it was taking us longer than I thought, I had planned to take Route 6 over to Orleans and drive down the southern coast and Nantucket Bay on Route 28. Since Hyannis was in the middle though it meant a slight change of plans. 

Exchanging the car for another Ford Expedition at the Hyannis Airport, we started driving east on Route 28 back to Orleans. (Now instead of getting a "low tire pressure" message on the dash, I kept seeing "required oil change" message. Apparently the car had just been turned in and they had not serviced it before giving it to us.) 


On our way back to Mashpee from Quincy, I had taken an exit for a Hearth & Kettle but couldn't find it. So when I saw one in South Yarmouth, I turned around and we went back there to enjoy a filling lunch. 


Janice ordered the Indian Pudding and we all helped her eat it. One of the first things I did when we got back to KC Saturday night was to start searching through some of my many cookbooks for a recipe for it. I found two and will be trying one of the them soon.


On our way out, while I went out to take a picture of the restaurant, everyone else started talking to a couple who had also eaten lunch there. Like I said, we met so many friendly people.


Not far down the road, we saw the Bass River Mercantile. I couldn't help but turn around and come back to it. It was just the kind of place where Janice and I love to shop and we did find a few things to buy. 


Leon had stayed in the car while the rest of us had gone in to check out the shop. When we saw the two benches out front, we insisted he get out and come see them. Can you read the word "Republicans" on the other bench? He loves to talk "politics" with people he knows or meets.

Whenever I saw a road that looked like it might go the beach, I would take it. In Chatham, I left Route 28 and drove down Stage Harbor Road. Not far down the road we saw the top of a lighthouse in a park. To distinguish the light from another lighthouse in Truro, Chatham had two lighthouses. I found a really interesting article about the history of the Chatham Lighthouses here. 


What we saw at the Atwood House Museum was the lantern room and lens from the south lighthouse.


Finally reaching a "beach", I could see a lighthouse across the "bay". I didn't know its name until I was writing this and was searching images of Chatham lighthouses. I could zoom in on the picture on my phone to see it clearly so I found a picture of it and its name. I kept saying it didn't look like it had a top and I found out why. It is called the Stage Harbor Light or Harding Beach Light. It was decommissioned in 1933 to save money. The lantern was removed and the lighthouse was capped. There is no electricity on the property and gets water from a single pump. You can read about it and other lighthouses on the Cape here. Scroll down to find the Stage Harbor Light.


I cropped my picture to see it more clearly.

Here are some more pictures I took in the area. Chatham is surrounded on three sides by water...the Atlantic Ocean, Nantucket Sound, and Pleasant Bay. It is also one of the foggiest place on the East Coast. I don't know which body of water is in the background. I think the ocean, but not sure.





This was a sign on the beach. We didn't see any sharks though.

In our exploring the Cape, one thing we saw a lot of was signs for ice cream. Seafood places would be advertising their seafood and ice cream. So when we felt an urge for ice cream, we were surprised we couldn't find any. There were a couple of places in Chatham, but they were all closed. So we were very excited to find an ice cream parlor open on the way out of town.

The day before was their first day of the season to be opened so they didn't have all of their varieties made yet. But what we had was delicious.

In Orleans, I got back on Route 6 and headed back to Mashpee and our cottage. Earlier in the week I had noticed on a map that Great Neck Road continued past our resort and looked like it stopped near the beach. Instead of turning into the entrance, I asked them if they were up to one more adventure. 

To our surprise this beach is what we found...practically in our backyard.

After the late stop for ice cream, we decided to eat leftovers we had back at the cottage for dinner and then play another game of canasta. Janice and I had won the first two nights, but the guys had come back and beat us the next night. That night my husband was the luckiest man ever getting wild cards. Needless to say, by the end of the evening, we stood 2 - 2.

Day 5 will find us going to Boston and seeing a lot more history. Read it HERE.

MISSED DAY 1? start from the beginning

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