Cape Cod

The labyrinth of small roads twisting roads with signs only at 7 mile intervals and rapid morning traffic on your tail leaves little sense of relief. I wanted to head to Cape Cod to get my road legs back, my nerves in check and see the ocean one last time. I drove exactly one hour from the house and no further. The ocean met my eyes and feet in freezing waters. Ever force yourself to do something just to feel the pain, to make sure you are still alive, and haven’t become so complacent in our comforts. Two other couples on the beach looked on rather quizzically.

Highway 6A sinuousness was not to be. Car raced up behind me yearning for yet another tourists to vacate their homeland as local rushed to do their daily chores. I yearned to slow down which became near to impossible as pullouts didn’t exist.

“Oh, honey if you think this is bad, you should have been here in August.”

“How does anyone visit artisans on route?”

“With a lot of U turns.” Which is exactly what I ended up doing. Coming around a bend with a car on my bumper I inevitably had to turn into someone driveway to head back to the store, artists shop, gardens, beaches, and fascinating architecture. Then signs started popping up “Don’t do U Turns In my driveway.”

I laughed out loud….

Determined to move only slightly faster than a 2 toed sloth I entered a gourmet grocery crowing only the finest in culinary dishes. I had a salad in mind, then in the corner of my eye I spotted a cheese pizza stand hidden from view. Funny how fast the grey neurons can be tricked into thinking that one deserves the cheesiest piece of pizza instead of the healthy salad. I relished every bite of it amongst the aristocrat wining and dining on caviar, now that was living. My waist line was expanding yet only on the finest of gastronomy.

From potters, to painters, no candlestick makers, yet gardeners extraordinaire. Foliage, blue hydrangea accented the teal blue shutters on a grey shingled home. Vines covered entire home having to be shaped for light to enter windows. Tall grasses whispered below the red maple that hedged the stone patio, willow chairs, stone tables, and manicured evergreens in the shape of mushrooms. White picket fences contained overflowing pots of peonies, pansies, and lawns hourglasses in shape. Every garden was an erotic movement, only the nymphs and the flutists were missing.

Blue, orange, brown, and red doors all adorned with wreaths of straw, foam, flowers, wheat, berries, and even a lifesaving device was a statement. What struck me odd was the Halloween fix. I’d been listening to some preaching on the radio, as they too were a dime a dozen. A gentlemen in his 70’s was going on about how American’s have overdone Halloween. He spoke about how in his day, kids dressed up, went out, got some candy and that was it. Next to Christmas yanks spend more money on Halloween than any other holiday. Every lawn has tomb stones, full size ghosts in doorways and behind hedges, dead crows hanging upside down, pumpkins Jack lanterns.  Cobwebs hang from trees, blow up full size Casper’s, Draculas, Witches, Gargoyles, Scarecrows, and Mummies coming out of the ground, and even human appendages spiked into the lawns.  The production is so big you can hire a landscaper architect to decorate your lawn. And this all starts in late September.

The labyrinth of small roads twisting roads with signs only at 7 mile intervals and rapid morning traffic on your tail leaves little sense of relief. I wanted to head to Cape Cod to get my road legs back, my nerves in check and see the ocean one last time. I drove exactly one hour from the house and no further. The ocean met my eyes and feet in freezing waters. Ever force yourself to do something just to feel the pain, to make sure you are still alive, and haven’t become so complacent in our comforts. Two other couples on the beach looked on rather quizzically.

Highway 6A sinuousness was not to be. Car raced up behind me yearning for yet another tourists to vacate their homeland as local rushed to do their daily chores. I yearned to slow down which became near to impossible as pullouts didn’t exist.

“Oh, honey if you think this is bad, you should have been here in August.”

“How does anyone visit artisans on route?”

“With a lot of U turns.” Which is exactly what I ended up doing. Coming around a bend with a car on my bumper I inevitably had to turn into someone driveway to head back to the store, artists shop, gardens, beaches, and fascinating architecture. Then signs started popping up “Don’t do U Turns In my driveway.”

I laughed out loud….

Determined to move only slightly faster than a 2 toed sloth I entered a gourmet grocery crowing only the finest in culinary dishes. I had a salad in mind, then in the corner of my eye I spotted a cheese pizza stand hidden from view. Funny how fast the grey neurons can be tricked into thinking that one deserves the cheesiest piece of pizza instead of the healthy salad. I relished every bite of it amongst the aristocrat wining and dining on caviar, now that was living. My waist line was expanding yet only on the finest of gastronomy.

From potters, to painters, no candlestick makers, yet gardeners extraordinaire. Foliage, blue hydrangea accented the teal blue shutters on a grey shingled home. Vines covered entire home having to be shaped for light to enter windows. Tall grasses whispered below the red maple that hedged the stone patio, willow chairs, stone tables, and manicured evergreens in the shape of mushrooms. White picket fences contained overflowing pots of peonies, pansies, and lawns hourglasses in shape. Every garden was an erotic movement, only the nymphs and the flutists were missing.

Blue, orange, brown, and red doors all adorned with wreaths of straw, foam, flowers, wheat, berries, and even a lifesaving device was a statement. What struck me odd was the Halloween fix. I’d been listening to some preaching on the radio, as they too were a dime a dozen. A gentlemen in his 70’s was going on about how American’s have overdone Halloween. He spoke about how in his day, kids dressed up, went out, got some candy and that was it. Next to Christmas yanks spend more money on Halloween than any other holiday. Every lawn has tomb stones, full size ghosts in doorways and behind hedges, dead crows hanging upside down, pumpkins Jack lanterns.  Cobwebs hang from trees, blow up full size Casper’s, Draculas, Witches, Gargoyles, Scarecrows, and Mummies coming out of the ground, and even human appendages spiked into the lawns.  The production is so big you can hire a landscaper architect to decorate your lawn. And this all starts in late September.

By late afternoon I was fully appeased that Cape Cod is truly magical in so many ways. My last of 5 beaches saw a man dressed in waterproof camouflage gear getting into a boat covered in plastic reeds as he held his gun ready to shoot the birds. I sat on shore and thought I had seen it all.