Cape Cod 2021

 Another Cape Cod Vacation is in the books!

We left last Thursday evening when Dan was finished with work and made it to Chambersberg, PA. We were up bright and early on Friday morning and on the road by 7:00 am.  We made it to the Cape by around 4:00. We got unpacked, got groceries, ordered our normal first night dinner of pizza, and were finally able to relax.

We spent Saturday morning doing some chores around the house and spent some time on Saturday afternoon on the beach. We grilled out hotdogs and then went for ice cream. We get ice cream every single night when we are on vacation at the Cape.  Every night. Without fail.  And we have zero regrets about it! After ice cream we took a drive through Hyannis to check out the big city on Saturday night. :) They have blocked part of Main St. and made it one lane instead of two so restaurants can have more outdoor seating and it makes for a very festive vibe.  There were lots of people walking, eating, cruising, etc.  We stopped at a little beach to take some pictures before heading home.

You can't really make it out, but this is Sarah swinging on the beach swing.

On Sunday we headed to mass at beautiful St. Francis Xavier in Hyannis. We should have remembered that Main St. was now only one lane instead of two but we weren't thinking about that and were a few minutes late to mass due to the traffic.  Ooops! After mass, we came home for lunch and then headed to Chatham.  It is such a cute town with a lot of shops and Sarah had some money to burn so Dan and Peter stood outside a lot while she and I went into all the shops.  On the way home in the evening, we stopped for dinner at Captain Parker's because when you are on the Cape, you have to have chowder and in my humble opinion, Captain Parker's is the best!

We had a long wait for dinner so we walked over to Parker's River to kill some time.

On Monday, we headed to Boston. We picked up Dan's uncle and then drove to Gloucester to pick up Dan's other (adopted) uncle, Ron.  Ron and Uncle Bob are best friends dating back to the seminary where they were roommates. Uncle Ron was an only child and Dan's family adopted him so to speak after his parents passed away. He spent all major holidays at Dan's home and we all call him Uncle Ron.

After we picked up Uncle Ron, we headed to lunch at the Seaport Grill.

After lunch, we dropped Uncle Ron off at his house and took Uncle Bob back to Boston and then we hung out in the city for a while.  Peter and Sarah wanted to do some shopping on Newbury St.  We parked in the garage at the Public Garden and went from there.

Sarah's new obsession is pictures with disposable cameras.  I think she's going to be disappointed with the results but maybe we will all be surprised. :)

After our time in Boston, we headed to Needham to have dinner with Dan's brother Dick and his family. It ended up just being us and Dick because Jennifer's mom had recently broken her shoulder and she had to help her and Jillian was sick with a cold and didn't want to get the rest of us sick so she stayed home.  Hopefully next year we can enjoy some time with the whole family but it was still nice to hang out with Dick for a while.

On Tuesday we slept in and then had lunch at home. Sarah and I spent the afternoon on the beach while Dan and Peter went off to do a little fishing in Parker's River.  

The only thing they caught!

On Wednesday, we were up early again and headed up to Provincetown.  We toured around the city, shopped, and had lunch.  Then we boarded a ship and went on a whale watch!  We saw three whales.  There was a mom and baby and they hung out around the ship the whole time we were out.  The third whale swam around for a while then went away from us, swam back for a while, went away again. But the mom and baby stayed near us the whole time.

We could see the baby nurse and then he would nap.  Then they would swim a bit and he would nurse again and then nap.  The baby napped at the surface while the mom was swimming beneath him.  

At one point, the mom was not visible and the tour guide said she was way below the surface eating.  She was gone for a bit and then the baby woke up and breached!  This was my third whale watch and the first time seeing a whale breach.  He breached at least 7 times. It was so cool to see.  And the sound he made each time he hit the water was awesome - sounded like a giant belly flop.  I felt like he was doing that to get his mom's attention so that she would come back to the surface. (I can only imagine how awesome it would have been to see the mother whale breach! Maybe next time.)

The whale pictures aren't impressive.  It's very hard to get a good shot of the whales so don't let them fool you.  We all had a great experience seeing them and it was definitely a highlight of this trip. We got some video but I have the worst time getting video loaded to this blog.

On our way home from Provincetown, we had dinner in Harwich port at Embers and of course, stopped for ice cream too. Sadly, I have no pictures of our ice cream trips but just know that it was all delicious!

On Thursday, Sarah and I spent time at the beach while Dan and Peter tried their hand at fishing again.  They had fun but didn't catch anything. 

On Friday, we headed to Falmouth and got on the Shining Sea Bike Path and rode the 3 and half miles to Woods Hole where we stopped in for lunch at Captain Kidd (this has now become a tradition) before riding back to Falmouth. This part of the bike path is so lovely.  There's lots of water views, lots of shade, and it's all very flat.  So it's the perfect bike path for me!

When we got back, we all went to the beach to spend a little time in the water and got this cute family picture:

After our nightly ice cream run, we took one last drive through Hyannis and walked around.  The moon was gorgeous so we stopped to take some pictures.

And then we headed back home to finish packing up and cleaning up and got on the road early on Saturday morning.  We drove from 7:00 until 3:50 when we stopped for mass in Havre de Grace, Maryland. After mass, we got back on the road and finally made it to Dan's sister's house in Alexandria, Va.  She made us a delicious dinner and then we walked around Alexandria and, you guessed it - got ice cream!  Alexandria was hopping! They also had streets closed down for outdoor eating and it was like a huge party in the town.  We got in a nice long walk, came back to her house watched some Olympics and then headed to bed as we were all exhausted.  There's nothing like a long day of doing nothing in the car to really tire you out! :)

Cathy fixed us a delicious breakfast on Sunday morning and then we headed home.  It was a wonderful vacation at the Cape. Dan and I spent a lot of time talking about the fact that as the kids go to college, family vacations will start to look a little different. I imagine at some point in the not too distant future, it will just be the two of us on these vacations with the kids joining us if and when they can.  That made me a little sad. Hopefully when the kids have their own families, another generation will be able to enjoy the little Cape house and fill it with lots of laughter and new memories will be made and cherished.