Vacations Archives - One Guy Outdoors

Prologue

In one of my previous posts, I went on and on about how great it was to stay in a house and be able to explore Cape Cod. I might have even mentioned some foolishness along the lines of “I’m never camping again.” However, camping is $17 a night and the cape house would normally cost over 1800 a week, so guess who camped on the cape again?

Journal

We have an annual trip that we take as a family ever year. We used to have several, but many of them have fallen by the wayside for one reason or another. Some I miss. I really like Emerald Lake in Vermont. Some I won’t. Grand Isle State Park is a beautiful park, but in October, all I remember is that it is cold. Some never quite materialized. We went to a condo in Jackson, NH one Christmas and received some comp time due to a malfunctioning shower that we used the following summer. The boys loved the trip and want to do it again, but it’s on the expensive side. However, through it all, for the last million(?) years, we have camped at Shawme-Crowell State Forest in Sandwich, MA.

We’ve camped with friends. We’ve camped just the two of us. We’ve camped for one week. We’ve camped for two weeks. Due to working restrictions, Christine and I only camped for two long weekends this year. I know. It’s a damn tragedy. We’ve camped when we were the only ones in the campground. We’ve camped during the 4th of July holiday week and will never do that one again. Heck, we’ve even camped in a damn hurricane. Nothing has kept us from this trip year after year.

It’s gotten to the point where I feel like the place is home. I will often make jokes on Facebook about “those damn tourists” or that we are “going home for a few days”. Christine and I talk more and more regularly about getting a place on the cape after we retire. I’ve said this before and I’ve even made jokes about it on my Facebook and elsewhere that I was going to start a fund raiser to help me retire down there. As the years pass and we vacation at other places less and the cape more, it is looking more and more likely. However, that’s a discussion for another time.

What do we do that is so great that we want to keep coming back and maybe even devote the last 20+ years of our life to living there? Well, this time, nothing. Not a damn thing. Remember last time when I made the argument for doing nothing? Well, it wasn’t quite that level of nothing. But, because Christine and I both worked this summer, these trips were definitely about refreshing and recharging. Even the boys, who usually aren’t impressed by our busy pace, mentioned that we didn’t do much during these weekend trips.

It might be argued that we are just bored or burned out with the things to do down there. This is an understandable assumption and entirely plausible. However, we went into the vacation with the idea that we would do things like go see a Cape Cod league game (which we haven’t in a few years), travel to the National Seashore beach again (which I suggested as a change of pace and because it was really much cooler than our usual beach), and travel to Wood’s Hole (one of my favorite places on earth) for a day.

We only actually did the last and that was on the very last day that we were there and after much procrastination. No, we were neither bored nor burned out on activities. We were just mostly tired from having worked all week and she just wanted to spend time on the beach. Me, I’m not much of a beach guy, but I will often accompany the family because they find ways to make it fun.

There weren’t any seal sightings at the beach like there were at the National Seashore beach. I didn’t strap on the wet suit, flippers, and snorkel to swim a ridiculous distance on the search for…well, I’m not entirely sure but we were supposed to know exactly what it was when we saw it. That refers to an adventure from a couple of years ago with a friend who used to live his entire life that way. Perhaps as I become more accustomed to posting to this page, I will either try to remember back that far or, more likely, just try to recreate it. We didn’t get caught on a disappearing/reappearing island and have to wade through a rapidly increasing high tide to get back to shore. That one was my own idea and we’ve been back to the place a few times. Once was to get on kayaks and get a lecture from my friend mentioned earlier that I should lay low and not piss off any fishermen. In his words, “I know you have no sacred cows, but this isn’t your domain anymore. Just follow me and be respectful because these guys don’t care out here.”

I won’t go into detail because, hey, it’s another potential essay at a later point in the page’s history. But, I will say that we didn’t get killed or detained by pirates. We did ogle huge boats in a marina that we paddled through. Well, during our most recent trip to Cape Cod, we didn’t even do that much. Though, we did see a huge shipping ship come through the canal during one of our nightly trips to the bike path. So, not even our beach visits led us down a path that ended with what anyone would consider “a good story”.

I mean, there was the one night that we traveled to a “different” beach for a fire at night with my sister-in-law and her family. The “different” beach was simply another stretch of the usual beach that we go to farther down the shore and on the other side of the canal. It was still fun as we sat there in the dark like a bunch of teenagers, constantly looking over our shoulder and joking that at any minute the cops or firefighters would show up to break up our little “party”. The funniest part was wondering what they’d say when they discovered that the “party” was me and my kids trying to throw rocks into the ocean from as far away as possible while one of my young nieces ate sand and the other fell asleep in her father’s arms. Oh, those raucous summer nights.

But, hey, not all adventures are about the adventure. Sometimes you just need a weekend or two to unwind. You are reminded what and who is important in life. Sitting in a campground or on a beach, riding a bike on a path along the canal, eating an ice cream (or in my case, drinking a milkshake) around a campfire either on the beach or at the campground, or hanging out with the fisherman on the jetty can all serve to flush out the bad and allow some good to flow back in to your brain, soul, humors, mojo, or whatever it is you believe that drives life and keeps you tethered to an increasingly bizarre reality.

Epilogue

Now that I’m thinking about it, this summer has been full of those types of adventures. We have spent a considerable amount of time at home instead of traveling. When we traveled, it has mostly been to either familiar or safe destinations. Maybe it is because we both worked this summer. Maybe it is because we have a big trip down the east coast and ending in Florida planned for next year. Maybe it is just because every so often you have to reboot the system. Whatever the reason, it has still been a great summer and I’m ready to head back to school for the fall semester.

Prologue

Christine’s principal asked a few weeks ago if we wanted use of her Cape House, free of charge, for a weekend. Yes, I know that’s a strange sentence. My life story sometimes seems to be a random string of strange sentences. Nevertheless, while the “why” or “how” might be interesting, the actually cool parts of this story come from the “what”. You already know the “who” and I just told you the “where”.

Journal

More specifically, the “where” is a four bedroom, 2 bath house on Samoset Road in Eastham, Massachusetts. It is situated between two ponds, at the end of the road is First Encounter Beach, and half a block in the other direction is the bike trail. I say all of this not to brag that we got all of this for nothing (okay, maybe a little), but I was actually astounded when she told us how much they rented the place per week. Normally, I scoff and grumble about dumb rich peopel who pay those prices. An example can be found only blocks from where we stayed. A B&B charged $2900 for a room.

This house has all of the amenities and convenience mentioned plus some other things that maybe I shouldn’t mention because I’m not positive if they’re friend/family benefits or not for only a little bit more than half of what the B&B charged. I mean, Christine told me the rate and I shrugged and replied, “That’s actually not that bad. 4 bedrooms, so you can get the whole family together to split it 3 or 4 ways and it’s less than an hotel room for the week.

The main points are; (a) there are still good people in the world, (b) deals abound if you just keep your eyes open and (c) I don’t want to camp any more. Because camping is so inexpensive, relatively speaking, that’s how I’ve been traveling since I was a kid. Even now, as I write this, I’m camping on the Cape in our usual spot. It’s costing us a fraction of a fraction of what splitting the house 3 ways would cost and we’d be able to spend a month down here before approaching the cost of the house. There will be more about camping over the next couple of weeks, though, so I will get back to the subject.

She and her husband stayed with us the first night. He has MS and needed some assistance figuring out the TV/DVD remotes. So, I played my usual role of “somewhat tech savvy surrogate son” and got him plugged in to Jack Reacher. I then went to the bedroom to hide from further social interaction. Christine found me and got me to come down and socialize only because I understood that it was conventionally polite. Also, unexpectedly, I got into the movie and enjoyed it. As an aside, the social hour inspired me several times to make observations or proclamations about how much MS must suck. I also wondered aloud a couple of times how tough it was to crack the disease since “they have the telethon every year and they can’t even really identify triggers. HIV and even cancer have been figured out to an extent, but MS keeps on destroying lives and bodies.” Apologies for the abrupt change in subject and tone. It’s obviously still occupying head space and maybe if I put it out there, I can open up lines of communication.

Because, in spite of much evidence to the contrary, I still believe in the good in people. I still keep 2 Generations Gaming in spite of the fact that i have no real idea nor plan for promoting it beyond the small following it because I like games and I want to spread that enjoyment as much as possible. If that leads to discussion and/or meeting new people. That’s also the reason for this page and honestly, why I ever write anything. I’d like to make money from it, but I’m more or less just in it for the community.

The next morning, as I often do, I woke up before everyone else. I sat on the deck, took a picture of the pond across the street, and spent about a half an hour doing absolutely nothing. I’m often astounded how people will come up with ways to describe their “nothing” time to make it sound like something. Thinking, meditating, relaxing, enjoying nature/silence/a cup of coffee. Each of those activities reduces action by a few degrees, but they all still imply that you are doing “something”. Why are people so reluctant to admit that they are nothing “nothing”? Well, I was doing nothing. There’s a virtue in doing nothing. As I say to Aiden all the time, you need to learn how to be bored.

Speaking of Aiden, as he often does, woke up second. I can’t remember if it was his idea or mine, but we ended up on our bikes. I first led ups up to the trail that is only a few feet from the end of the driveway. He asked about going to the beach that our host has mentioned that was “at the end of the road”. Consulting the map, I confirmed that, in fact, it was, so we set out on our adventure. A 10 minute bike ride led us to First Encounter Beach, where supposedly the pilgrims actually landed and met the Wamponoag. It isn’t much to speak of. Our first impression was that thee sand flies are brutal.

However, that only extends to the “main” stretch of beach near the parking lot. If you go either left or right, they are non-existent. Traditionally, for kids, the beach is great. During low tide, there is a huge sand bar that reaches out at least a half a mile. Numerous tide pools litter the landscape, offering countless opportunities for exploration. I also ran (more on that in the next post) the beach twice and the west gooey sand made for great padding. We visited the beach twice and once we got out of range of the bugs, both visits were awesome.

We also found a loophole that allowed us to visit the National Seashore Beach free of charge. It’s a trip that we’ve wanted to take for years, but haven’t been able. One reason is the cost. It’s 20 bucks to park. That’s not bad if you’re an all day beach family, but that’s simply insane for the 2-3 hours that we usually spend at the beach. The other reason ties into a comment that I made during the camping trip. “once people get on to the Cape, they just sort of settle where they are. The traffic is so ridiculous that they don’t want to go anywhere. Maybe that’s an over-generalization and not true for everyone, but it has held for us. Other than one (or two) extremely rare trips to P’town, a rainy day travel to the brewery, chip factory, and mall in Hyannis, and a couple of others, we stay very close to our home base, usually Sandwich.

This time, we were in farther and discovered that the National Seashore was right down the road in the other direction. Score! But, still, the $20 to park. Sure, we could have just shut up and paid it. During our little caper, we considered it. But, good stories usually involve some level of dishonesty and intrigue. Also, damn the man!

(Side note: In this case, “the man” is actually the National Park Service, an organization that I 100% support and has been one of the prime resisting voices in this slow fall of dominoes that appears to be leading to a facist takeover of the country. Damn, I feel bad. Time to write a check.)

What makes me feel worse is the beach was actually amazing. Bear in mind, I’m not much of a beach person. In fact, I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I actively dislike the beach and will skip it 1 out of every 3 times they visit. But, this beach was fantastic. First, the ride into the beach carried us through the forest where we saw a turkey and over a bay bridge. Second, the waves at the beach were huge. Third, we followed a pod of seals down the beach. In fact, I had so much fun that I asked Christine if her family might consider the drive to come back to the beach. Her answer was non-committal, but I want to return.

Epilogue

We finished the trip with another family paddle on the small pond, a seafood dinner, and a fire complete with giant marshmallow s’mores. It was a trip to a place that we know and love, but in a different area. That made all the difference. We explored and found new adventures in new places. I don’t want to sound greedy, but I want to come back and explore some more. Heck, I’ll even pay for the privilege.

Category: Vacations

Camping Cape Cod

The Cape House