weekending/Hello Monday-- all about The Cape edition

 

Happy Monday, friends! I'm linking up with Holly and Sarah for this blog post. Usually I would talk about my weekend, but I am sharing about my trip to the Cape Cod area. I hope you enjoy reading about what we accomplished in three days! More about the shortened time in a few minutes. 

I left for Boston at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning, the 24th. I switched planes in Baltimore and landed in Boston around eleven. My sister landed around one, so after I made it off the plane, I found a place to eat lunch and sat at a table for the remaining time before she met me. Once she landed, we found each other and I was surprised to see that my sister Debi had come with her! How fun, right?! We found our way to the car rental place and started the drive to Centerville, Massachusetts, where we were staying on Craigsville Beach. 

We stayed at The Ocean View Inn—look how charming it was!

We got settled in for our stay and left for town. We were all hungry and we needed to find a Target or CVS for a few things for our stay, and for snacks for our room. We ate in Hyannis, which was right near the harbor and took the opportunity to take some pictures. 

(left to right: me, Debi, Lisa)

That fisherman statue reminds me of a movie we recently watched about sea shanties. I thought he was cute! We found a tavern style place called The Black Cat, where we ate the best clam chowdah chowder. (I'm laughing, because I love Boston accents.) Lisa and I shared a wedge salad, then we each had our own stuffed crab cake. It was delicious and so was the wine that we all had. We shared some cheesecake for dessert as well. We were stuffed when we went to bed that night! Also, we thoroughly enjoyed every single meal that we ate while in the Cape. 

We slept in a little the next morning, then we left for Chatham. 

So, most of you know that I love Pamela Kelley's books, specifically her Beach Plum Cove series. Well, look at the name of this road Lisa spotted as we were driving to Chatham! We had to turn around, which is where we were when we came across this cute little road on a beach cove, but we got our pictures. These books and this author inspired and helped plan our trip. She and I corresponded over social media, which really helped us out. 

She is the one who told us to eat at Mac's Chatham Fish and Lobster. Look at this beautiful lobster roll! I like mine Maine style, which is made with mayo and served cold. Connecticut style is served warm with melted butter. I like Maine style, but Lisa and Debi prefer Connecticut style. I forgot about my favorite chips being made in this area! How appropriate that they're served here with lunch. 

It was a little drizzly and overcast at some points of the day, but we had fun walking around and seeing all the charming little shops and buildings. I know that we missed out on some of this cute little town, but we really wanted to see Provincetown while we were there, so we opted to go ahead with that plan in order to get back before dark. While we were headed to do that, we decided to stop for a restroom break and some soft drinks before the hour long drive. 

It was while Debi and I were inside that the trajectory of our trip changed. Lisa got a call from her neighbor while she waited in the car, who told her that his yard was unnecessarily wet and when he went to walk around to inspect, he noticed water coming out of her house. When she asked him to go inside to see what was going on, he could hear water gushing. A pipe under her master bathroom sink upstairs had burst and was gushing water similar to the power with which a fire hydrant gushes. It had been doing that, most likely, for 24 hours or more since the time she had left for our trip. Every room in her house was affected. The ceilings were caving in, walls were cracking and water was coming out of the light fixtures and standing in places all around her house. Eventually the water came down to the ground floor, then to the basement, then to the crawl space under her house. Her entire house, and everything in it, was flooded. 

We made the decision then to cut our trip short. We decided to stay until Tuesday, so that we could see Nantucket, because if we had skipped that one day, it would have been a complete waste of money. We'd also already decided not to go to Martha's Vineyard and had made some other changes in the original plans of our trip. We sat in the parking lot of the gas station for a good hour until she had spoken with her son and daughter who were there to help her neighbor and with her brother in law, who retrieved a few important documents for her. When that was taken care of, Lisa decided we would go onto Provincetown. Have I ever mentioned she is one of the strongest people I know? So, on we went.

Provincetown was interesting. And a big disappointment, but we can say that we have been there and done that. 

The vibe here felt like a cross between New Orleans and Key West. We quickly decided it wasn't for us, but on our way back to the inn, we stumbled upon a lighthouse! This is The Cape Cod Light.

We made the short trek to see the ocean, and I'm glad we did! It was fun to come across this. Originally we wanted to go on a lighthouse chase, but that was one thing we had to forego when we shortened the length of our trip. It was a bit of a bummer, but we were all completely fine with going home early. We totally understood that Lisa needed to be there herself. 

We drove back to Hyannis once again for dinner. We decided to go Italian on this night and enjoyed pasta and seafood. I was way too hungry to take pictures on this night, plus, it wasn't that pretty to look at. It was DELICIOUS.

We were up early the next morning for our ferry to Nantucket!

In spite of taking anti-seasick medication, I was still sick on the ferry over to Nantucket. I just sipped my diet Sprite the whole time and Debi bought me some yogurt. I also had a bite of her bagel, but I was glad to be there! I was fine on the way back, it was just choppier early in the morning. We took the fast ferry over, which is still an hour long ride. Here's the thing I didn't expect: It's expensive to ferry over! To take your car onto a slow moving ferry, it's over $300! You can take the Hyline ferry, which looks like a speedboat, for around $90, but we opted for the older, fast moving ferry called the Steamship Authority for around $50 roundtrip. Those are estimated prices, which may change in varying seasons. I'm not really sure, but it just caught all of us a little off guard. 

The ferry drops you right in the middle of town. We had things that we knew we wanted to do, which included a guided tour of some kind, eating lunch at a well known spot and seeing as much of the island as we could. We made our way over to Main Street, which is where most of the shops are located. Look how adorable!

One of the first places we stopped at was The Hub, which is centrally located in the downtown area on Main Street. I had a really good iced hazelnut cold brew and Debi had breakfast #2 of the day. 🤣 Her first breakfast was on the ferry. We made our way around and found Mitchell's Book Corner, which probably ended up being my favorite shop and stop of the day. 

We were browsing and trying to find some of Pamela Kelley's books and couldn't, so we went back downstairs. When I asked about where her books were, the kind lady working there took us back upstairs and showed us where they were. Lisa got down on the floor to look at them and ended up finding some hidden autographed copies! How cool, right? Hence the lovestruck look on my face in the picture of me in front of the book shop. We each got a copy of a signed book, and I picked the first book in that series, The Nantucket Inn. 

After this we made our way over to where we had reservations for lunch, The Brant Pointe Grille at The White Elephant Hotel. We had more lobster!

This cocktail was divine! The ACK Sunshine, or something like that.

We had cocktails with our lunch of a lobster roll, lobster mac and cheese and a brie burger. It was delicious! I ate seafood with every single meal, except for one and even then I had a bite of Lisa's scallops. 

After more walking, we took a historical tour of the island, which was so interesting. We learned that all of the homes on the island must be covered in cedar shingles, unless the home was built before the year 1960, when they were made with wood or brick. The brick on the homes and sidewalks are made of brick, which was made on the island. The cobblestone streets are notorious on Nantucket and they're killer to walk/drive on! We saw the less touristy side of the island, which was beautiful and where Siaconset ('Sconset) beach is located. We came across another lighthouse, the Sankaty Lighthouse.

(This was Val, our beloved tour guide and entrepreneur of the island.) After our tour, we walked around some more, then made our way to a spot where we could sit and enjoy a cold drink. I bought myself a blueberry muffin to go with my ginger ale. It was good! We were tired by this point and just stayed close by the docks taking us back to the ferry. We caught the six o'clock ferry back to Hyannis and immediately went to dinner one last time at The Black Cat once again. We all enjoyed clam chowder one more time and I ate fish and chips. It was delicious! After our dinner, we went back to the inn and started packing up to be ready to leave the next morning. We checked out of the inn and made the drive back into Boston. We stopped for a late breakfast in Plymouth, then spent the rest of the time at the airport waiting for our planes. Lisa and Debi left at three something and I left at six something that evening. They flew straight through to Denver, but I had a layover in Chicago. Thankfully, all the flights were on time and I made it back home with about fifteen minutes to spare. Because I didn't check my bag, I was able to walk right off and out the door to my awaiting husband. 

Here's my takeaway from the whole trip: It was so much fun! I always love being with my sisters. Nobody else makes me laugh quite like they do and we always have a blast together. The entire Cape area is gorgeous! I would like to spend more time there and to show it all to my husband. I'd love to spend a week there and in the Boston area. I wanted to see more of Boston, but that was something we had decided to cut out of our plans, even prior to Lisa's house flooding. If you're thinking of going to Provincetown, skip it. It's not worth the drive. I'd like to see more of Edgartown! I think we missed quite a bit of the charming town. I really didn't want to go and shop, but we did a lot of that. I wish we had spent that time driving around more and chasing lighthouses. 

Nantucket was beautiful! I was more fascinated with the architectural element of the style of homes and buildings and learning about the history of the area. Now that I've been there, I can say that I've been there, done that and crossed off a bucket list trip idea. Now that I've been once, I don't feel the need to go back. I cannot imagine making that commute often! It felt long and very far away. I'm not a huge crowd lover, and that's what we encountered, even in the off season. I cannot imagine going there in the summer! No thank you. It was beautiful, don't misread what I'm saying and I did love the time there, but one day was sufficient. It does make me kind of wonder what all the hype is about, though. I'll stick to reading about it more in the books I love to read. That's enough to satisfy me. 

If you've made it ALL THE WAY TO THE END, more power to you! I tried to keep it short and sweet, but also detailed enough for my memories and for anyone else who was curious about what we did. I have had several people ask me about that. Even in spite of ending the trip two days early, you can see that we crammed a lot of stuff in, in just a short amount of time. It really did feel like were there for a week! Each day was long and extremely gratifying. It's fun to see new places! Thanks for reading my blog, friends! I've missed you, but I decided to keep with the regularly scheduled break and pretend like I wasn't in town for the rest of the week. I enjoyed every second! I didn't work, I didn't go to church, I just stayed home and caught up on laundry and such, then I got my nails done and grocery shopped and made a fabulous family dinner on Thursday. I saw Dad on Friday, was with Mom and Trish on Saturday, and spent the day at church on Sunday for actual church and a night of worship that evening. It's fun to travel, but there's no place like home. On that note, if you want to, feel free to pray for Lisa. I know she has a long road ahead of her of battling insurance, contractors and the replacement of all that was lost in her home. Thanks! Love to all.