The Days are Just Packed

 

Sunday 7/17

We started with a walk at Thompson’s Field, another hike with lots of intersecting trails. In Wellfleet very few trails are open to dogs, but we saw lots and lots on this hike. We also saw lots of people, which hadn’t happened on any of our other hikes. Some of the trails were wide and filled with people/dogs, while others were narrower and very quiet.

We got back and it was finally time to go to Bubby’s place on Goose Pond. When I told Betsy the landlady that we’d be spending time there she wrote back YOUR MOTHER HAS A HOUSE ON GOOSE POND!!!???. The house continues to have rusty water problems, so much so that later in the week Bubby will sport very fashionable orange nails and slightly less fashionable orange hair, but the pond is as perfect as ever. Dave and Josh got out the canoe and took the girls for a ride, and then they got in the kayaks and paddled around. Meanwhile Jen and I took the floaties (there was only 1 at the house, but Jen and Josh had stopped at the floatie store and she got another one just like it, only blue) and floated around in the pond. It was blissful. We got lunch from the Corner Store (burritos or burrito bowls) and Jen and I split one and had some of the gazpacho that Bubby brought. A note for the future: Corner store has kid size burrito bowls – perfect!

I love to go fast at sea!

Then it was time to go home and get cleaned up and head to Barnstable for whale watching. Usually you go to Provincetown, but that’s more like an hour and a half from Chatham, instead of ½ hour. The whales are just north of P’town at Stellwagon bank, but we thought it would be more fun to boat than drive – and we were right. The boat was big and crowded, but it had 5 jet engines and it could MOOOOVE. Lynn came with us, and we all managed to find places to stand on the front of the boat- in my case, right out in the very front. As we passed race point and got out into the ocean we could already see spouts, and then it just got crazy with so many whales bubble feeding that sometimes we had to choose which ones to watch. Then at one point a giant pod (300?) of Atlantic white sided dolphins came and swam with the boat. I had been hoping we’d see at least a couple of whales – we must have seen at least 20, and most of them we saw multiple times. It was a great trip.

On the way home we stopped at Finn’s in Hyannis where I had a hotdog with sauerkraut in a real butter toasted new England hotdog bun. It was delicious. And Dave got extra Alaska miles for eating there.

Jen took this crazy video of bubble feeding. We saw this many times on our trip. Amazing.

some bonus photos of people eating ice cream

Monday 7/18

The hits just kept coming! Dave and I started the morning with a short walk at the Pleasant Bay Woodlands, a hike maintained by the Harwich conservancy (and not on google maps or AllTrails). It’s about ¼ mile up the road from the house and goes by a cranberry bog – we even saw little unripe cranberries growing!

It was foggy most of the day, but still quite warm. Our next activity was more ponding. The ponding with the girls is so great this year – I played so hard with the girls that we broke the yellow floaty! I wish we had pictures of how much fun we had. After we go cleaned up from pond time we went for lunch at Mac’s where I had yummy steamer clams and figured out why they’re never served in broth or roasted – they’re too sandy! After lunch I did some major relaxing while Dave, Josh and Jen went up to Wellfleet for some excellent sailing with Lynn.

Why did they leave Jen in the bay????

Hannah and Jen enjoy some down time

Dinner was an extravaganza! My cousin Zach (on my mother’s side) and his wife Liz were staying with their daughter Allie and her husband Eric and their daughter Maya, who is just a little younger than Hannah. We all had fun figuring out the relationship between the girls (second cousins, once removed, if you’re curious) while Zach put together one of his legendary dinners. He and Dave had consulted on wine, and it was an excellent dinner and very fun to be with so many family members! The meal ended with delicious chocolate cupcakes – I got one frosted by Maya with minimal frosting which was excellent. There was good joke telling too. Sadly, no photos.

Tuesday 7/19

Tuesday was Josh and Jen’s last day with us, and we kept them busy! Dave and I started our day with a hike that took off from Long Pond Rd but didn’t actually go by any ponds. We spent pretty much the whole day either at the pond or relaxing in the big house. It was an exciting morning for me, because I swam all the way across Goose Pond and back, about 2/3 of a mile total. Dave was out kayaking so I flagged him down to place my lunch order, but it turned out Corner Store wasn’t open, so we got lunch from a taco place instead, not quite as good. After lunch Josh and Jen took Avery to miniature golf while Hannah napped. They also stopped at the floaty store for a new yellow floaty.

It was a good thing we rested up because dinner was another extravaganza – a family lobster feed featuring 6 1-lb lobsters (Ben and the girls had hamburgers), oysters both raw and grilled, fruit salad, roasted potatoes, and corn on the cob. We all worked as a team and made a great meal! Once we’d finished cleaning up the girls and Josh and Jen went to bed, and Ben and Joan and Dave and I went to the Ice Cream Café, where they have the best classic hot fudge sundaes that I’ve had in a very long time, although I had a Indian pudding ice cream cone dipped in chocolate. It was fun to be out just the four of us, and the long line moved very quickly.