For those of you that are really into Cape Cod, what things do you like about it specifically? I have asked that question many places including on this board and I still don’t get it.
It is an honest question and lots of people seem to love it so there must be something to it. It looks just like other parts of non-Boston, Massachusetts to me. I already live in a pretty area with lots of accessible hiking, biking and lake beaches and I don’t have to spend thousands of extra dollars a week to do it or get stuck in traffic for hours. I have been myself a number of times and it just seemed like people were dragging me through a windy tour of the North Atlantic and I always ended up freezing even in July just to retreat 3 blocks back from the beach to a small house that was much worse than any of us already lived in 50 miles away.
I am not going to criticize your answer. I love some off the wall places too but Cape Cod always struck me as a bad combination of kitchy and cold.
I must confess to having a relative with a house on the Cape so I don’t spend thousands to stay there. And my schedule is flexible enough to allow me to travel off-peak.
I’m particularly fond of the national seashore running from Eastham to Provincetown. Love the dunes and the salt marshes. Kayaking in Nauset Salt Marsh is one of my all time favorite things to do. Walking in the Wellfleet Audubon Sanctuary is another. I know there are more beautiful beaches to be had, but the Cape happens to be the part of the country where I live and I’m rather fond of it.
I would consider retiring to a somewhat warmer, sunnier clime, but my husband can’t see himself outside of New England.
Oh, I love the rose hips and hydrangea bushes on the Cape too.
Great. We’ve finally had a few nice days in a row, and so I’m now sitting in a pub freezing my ass off due to air conditioning.
I swear it would be warmer in here in February.
WTF?
I’m a MA native but I can’t really tell you what the appeal is either. I have some nice memories of going there with my great-grandparents as a kid (up though age 11) but I’ve never found it worth the drive - and all the damn traffic!- as an adult. Except there’s now a pirate museum and we’re planning to visit that at least once, anyway.
I would definitely do a pirate museum. I am certainly not opposed to northern New England. My dream in life as a little Louisiana kid watching the Newhart show was to live in Vermont and I did that. It was everything I expected it to be and only came out kicking and screaming only to be exiled to Southern New England where they are under the delusion that they are somehow better than the Jersey Shore. I don’t know as much about Maine but I have had good experiences there too. At least they have truly unique experiences in their lobster shacks where the only choice is what size of lobster you want. If global warming would kick in a little faster, New Hampshire is my ideal state and I love it with all my heart.
It is really just the southern neighbors in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island that are driving things down. Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire are well-run, gorgeous, historical treasures.
Went for a nice little 5-miler Town Lake run after work. Took the shirt off. Got the tan going even darker. It’s only June and I am as dark as a Mexican already.
Tomorrow going for a motorcycle cruise out to the Hill Country. Weather the same, probably a bit warmer, pushing towards 90.
I’m close to being a MA native, and I know little about the Cape and rarely went south of Boston for any reason, now that I think about it. Summer was White Mountains season. The beaches are for any given day. I’m on the NH seacoast now, so I have three states and many different beaches to choose from, traffic permitting.
It really depends on the day, who’s with me and what we feel like doing. Hampton Beach is great for the family, if you can find good parking. Jeness Beach up the road a ways is even better, smaller, more picnicky, and right across from the Beach Plum which has the best lobster rolls in the world. On a weekend when things are crowded, I like Odiorne Point in Rye, which has a pebble beach with tidepools and rock sculptures that random people build – it’s different.
I visit MA a lot and try to include trips to Salem Willows and Plum Island every summer. Old haunts.
Yeah, temps started out in the mid-sixties in NYC earlier this week, and have been crawling upward at an alarming pace until it’s 92 today, with a heat wave forecast for the next few days.
I took advantage of it by planting my basil, which would have died in the chilly nights if I’d done it any sooner. Also, my tomato plants grew more in the past 48 hours than they did in the previous two weeks.
I will be VERY CRANKY until Wednesday, when the high is going down to around 80, and then to 66 on Thursday. I will be happy then, but concerned about all the weird weather shifts.
I thought folks Down East loved the snow … all them blizzards this last winter was a dream come true … what’s Bar Harbor without twelve feet of snow but just another fishing port?
Once I was sent to Maine to pick up equipment. I asked my contact what they did up there, and was informed that they “fished and f**ked”. Then he added, “and in the winter, the bay freezes over”.