Adventures on The Outer Cape
Every week we get little insights and bits of local knowledge about Cape Cod and the surrounding areas. While we were out on Nantucket, we were given the advice to “Go to Provincetown, MA the moment the weather gets nice. Provincetown (locally called P-Town) is at the very end of the arm of Cape Cod. We heard that it gets really busy as summer progresses, so we wanted to find a time to get out there and enjoy it while it wasn’t packed. We were lucky enough to see temps perking up, wind dying down and the sun finally showing up for Easter Weekend in P-Town! Time to throw all the camping gear in the car and bring back Easter Camping!!!
Mile: 61,052
Quote of the Blog: Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.” - Saint Augustine
Song of the Blog: “Waves” - Mr. Probz
We have been battling some nasty weekend weather lately. The irony is that it is nice all week, and then we have been hit with rain and wind. We have made the joke that we currently get to explore Cape Cold. So when we saw the good weather in P-Town, it was a no-brainer to make our trip out there happen. The drive out was very smooth and easy. We had to get a run in, so we found a trail out on the cape that we could run on called the Cape Cod Rail Trail. The trail itself is a little over 22 miles long, and runs almost the entire Outer Cape. We parked at the end of the trail in Wellfleet, as we wanted to check out a restaurant in that area after the run. With only a couple more weeks left before our next Half-Marathon, it was fun to run some distance in a new place.
Following our run, we headed out to the Atlantic shoreline to go to a spot that was recommended by a Montana friend, called The Beachcomber. Everything about it looked amazing, but when we rolled up, we found out that it was closed. That has been a hard thing about our adventures. Not a lot of places update their operation hours and status online, so we have had this happen to us a couple times. Cape Closed strikes again! We made a change of plans and headed up to P-Town to find some food and explore.
We opted for the scenic drive into town along the shoreline. Modest houses ran the shoreline, but we couldn’t help but wonder how many of them were homes and how many of them were short term rentals. Driving into Provincetown, we started to see signs of its history and culture decorating the houses and parks. We found some parking close to the middle of town, and set off on our walk to explore P-Town.
The most prominent sight in Provincetown is a large tower on the top of the highest hill in town. We learned this is the Pilgrim Tower, and is part of the Pilgrim Museum in town. Provincetown was first settled by the Pilgrims before they made it to Plymouth Rock. As time has gone on, the town has become a tourist destination for people from all around the world. Its unique culture is ever present around every corner of town. Provincetown is now more culturally accepting than anything the Pilgrims would have seen it as. This element has made for a very welcoming town dedicated towards unity and acceptance.
The main street of Provincetown is an interesting place. The road is barely big enough to be a one way street, and then toss in all of the masses of people walking down the street and you have a little bit of a cluster (and it’s not even the busy season)! The sidewalks are packed with gift shops, restaurants, bars and your occasional Drag Show Venue. We found a bakery to get some goodies at featuring Portuguese baked goods. We ended up sharing a Maple Coffee Cake and some Portuguese Fry Bread. After our run, this was amazing! Afterwards we found a quality dive bar to head into for a couple beers, called the Old Colony Tap. Its been a while since we have sat in barstool that were uneven and easy to fall over on, but we got a little Bierstube mixed with the Palace vibes and loved it! For dinner, we found The Cantina for some seafood. This restaurant had come up on my searches of “Best Lobster Rolls”. We split a Cold Lobster Roll and some Fish & Chips while sitting out on their backyard beach facing the harbor. The cold roll was just as good as a warm buttery roll! Now that we have sampled both styles, we know that you can’t go wrong!
Following our walk around town, we headed out to the campground we were camping at to get things set up. We were camping at the Costal Acers Campground. While setting up our tent, we learned the unfortunate news that they did not have any firepits, and we were anticipating it to be a cold night. This would generate some really funny improvising later in the night. Aside from this, the campground was clean and nice. Once we had everything setup, we headed out to a nearby beach to check out the sunset.
We headed down to Herring Cove Beach. The sun was setting behind some clouds as we showed up, so we got to see a false sunset, but it was still beautiful. The wind was ripping, so we thought we might get some better conditions at another spot, so we quickly hopped in the car and headed over to Race Point Beach. By the time we got over there, it was fairly dark, but the wind was less significant. We did a little walk down around the area before getting back to the car and continuing on our exploration of the peninsula. We headed down into Provincetown again to see what the town looked like at night. For a Saturday night in the “shoulder season” there is a vibrant nightlife in P-Town. We ended the night back at the campsite. Because we didn’t have a fire, we just ended up sitting in our car playing music, having a couple beers and laughing. We didn’t need a fire, just a warm car and good tunes!
The next morning, Amity woke up early to head down to the harbor for an Easter Mass on the pier. She was greeted with a beautiful sunrise! This set the tone for a very relaxing day on The Cape. When she got back to camp, we got things broke down and packed back into the car. We then headed down to town to get some food. Finding parking became really difficult. If it’s this hard to find parking now, we can only imaging when it’s busy out here. This all but validated our decision to come out here a little early in the season, even if it wasn’t ideal weather for the beach. We ended up finding parking, but then finding a place for brunch was a little more difficult. There were several places hosting Easter Brunch, but just about every single one of them was a Drag Show Easter Brunch, and I just couldn’t do it. We ended up doing a little walking and found a great spot called Bay Cafe, that sat us right on the railing of their deck looking over the harbor. This was well worth the long walk and passing up multiple spots!
We left the restaurant and headed back out to Race Point to walk along the beach. Today was a great example of Cape Cold. The wind was ripping and although the sun was out, it was sitting around 45 degrees out. With it being Easter Sunday, we thought we would have to wear so many layers to enjoy the beach, but here we are! After a good walk, we pushed on to our next location down the Outer Cape. Amity had found a small hike to do around a salt marsh that takes you out onto an island. It was low-tide, so it was less of an island and more of a dry hill surrounded by a creek filled with birds looking for fish. Our next stop was at the Nauset Lighthouse. This spot holds significance, because this is the lighthouse on the font of the Cape Cod Kettle Chips bag. We are dorks, but we really enjoyed this spot! We took a couple pictures and then did a little costal drive down past Coast Guard Beach and onto the next stop on our Sunday Funday. This was at a Daffodil garden in Brewster, MA. We got very lucky with this stop. Because of social media, places like this are usually packed with people trying to get photos with the flowers, and we were able to see the whole field of flowers without anyone else there! Win for us!
The adventure ended at our favorite brewery, Treehouse Brewery. Today it was special, because recently whales had been spotted in the area, and out in the distance I could see their water spouts coming out every so often. Amity and I had a good time looking for them while enjoying delicious beers. We are very lucky to have the ability to make adventures like this happen, and not have to be further than 80 miles away from our house. Cape Cod is a beautiful place, and has endless places to explore. We will not be able to see it all, but if we can put in more days like today, we will see a large chunk of it! Here’s to spring time being here, and to warmer days on The Cape! Live Rad & Happy Easter!