Day 50, 51 & 52: Our car is taking a boat ride
Trip Start
Jul 01, 2008
1
24
38
Trip End
Sep 27, 2008
Provincetown,
Massachusetts,
United States
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Mystic had been one of those places I had seen a picture of in a magazine and wanted to visit, without knowing anything about it, and by chance our route to Newport, Rhode Island, had us travel right through. Neither of us have seen Mystic Pizza (a Julia Roberts film for those who have also never heard of it), but we discovered her pizza shop lies right in the middle of town, so we took the obligatory snap and traveled on. Newport RI, was not on our original itinerary, but as we are still traveling by the seat of our pants, we thought "why not". It was afterall the place Australia took home the Americas' Cup (sorry to all our American friends), but we were given grief in Newport for our accents, so it seemed fitting to remind those we could, of Australia's proudest sailing moment.
We marveled at the amazingly grand 'cottages' on the headlands looking over Bailey's Sound and loved following the Newport seashore, but the temperature had dropped to an almost arctic 70 degrees, so we chickened out of taking a dip.
Windblown on the ferry
The night was spent in a horrible, cheap, smelly, hotel outside of Newport, but we paid for what we got, so we didn't complain and got on the road in record time the following morning.Off to the Cape. We opted for the southern shore route on the way out, and enjoyed a quick stop at Falmouth and Woods Hole before chancing upon a Pie Shop. I don't know if the words Pie Shop scream out in quite the same way to anyone who hasn't lived in the US without easy access to a meat pie for 3 years, but for us it was worth the handbrake turn Matt made into their gravel driveway. Taking our place in the crowded bakery, we salivated over the Steak Pie on the menu. First brought to us was the refrigerated version, which was useless as we didn't imagine an oven was thrown in with our State Park Camping reservation. I asked for a warm pie, and after much confusion behind the scenes, I was brought a semi-warm pie with a side of cold gravy. We were so excited we left the store without looking inside the paper bag, only discovering at our much sought out picnic spot at the lighthouse, that there were heating instructions accompanying the pie. 40 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Sadly we only discovered the slip of paper once we had started eating, what was I have to admit an incredibly tasty pie, but the pinky meat was making me nervous as we had a full night in the tent ahead and I didn't want any upset tummies, or worse. So, after insisting the kids get their meat fix for the week, we retracted their plates and fed them their roadtrip staple: choc (nutella) sandwiches, an apple and a bottle of water.
Newport mansion referred to as a 'cottage'.
We had planned on getting all the way to Provincetown that day, but we had already had a few too many stops along the way (and the wasted pie stop had sucked a good hour from our day), so we bent to Daniel's pleas for a fishing spot and some swimming. Our campsite was at Nickerson State Park, and Matt returned from Check-in very, very happy. Ponds, beaches, fishing spots, bike & hike trails ... this was one well set up campground. We had only booked a few days prior, and according to Reserve America we got the last spot, but it turned out to be
a really special spot. Our tent site had a track down to the 'kettle pond' so we traipsed down and had one cast into the (supposedly) well stocked trout and salmon pond, before losing the lure to a root. Matt went out 50 yards fully dressed to rescue the line while Aviva, Dan & Tom found new friends and bobbed around in the lake.
Today was supposed to be an early start, but as usual it was nearly lunchtime by the time we got going, and that can only mean one thing with kids in the back. We needed to find food. Buying us some time, we stopped for muffins & coffee, and then set off for Provincetown having been warned it was a little Gay & Lesbian minded. Thinking we had probably seen it all, hailing from Sydney (and Tasmania, but we don't count that when we consider our exposure to the Rainbow Flag Brigade), we thought nothing of it. So it came as quite a shock when we arrived and found a Mardi Gras style environment surrounding the car and taking up every square inch of this end of Cape Cod. Matt nosed his way through the main thoroughfares, unperturbed by cowboys, trannies, and a man dressed up as a pink Marilyn Monroe peering in through the windows.
Aviva thought the carnival was wonderful, she kept asking where we could buy the beads they all seemed to be wearing, as that was the only part of her outfit missing, having picked up a Lone Star Cowgirl hat way back in Texas.
We had thought we'd have lunch in Provincetown but it seemed we'd have way too much explaining to the kids to do, so we drove south to Moby Dick's which was the perfect Cape Cod ending. Lobster Sandwiches. And that ends our east coast trifecta, Long Island, Newport, and Cape Cod.
From here it's to Boston - not to visit Altium for work purposes, but a stop in at the office will bring some relief to finally have two credit cards again after Wells Fargo cancelled mine way back in North Carolina because they were worried about my out of state transactions. Thanks Ben & Erin for sending it out to us!
