Cape Cod

Perhaps it was the stress and letdown of Boston, but I was really looking forward to Cape Cod.  I mean how exciting does a hook of land literally spiraling into the ocean sound?  The beaches, the lighthouses, the history.  And it was my Dad’s old stomping grounds.  The Cookes have a long history in the Boston area, he grew up in Braintree and spent a lot of time in this area, often reminiscing about “the Cape”.  Unfortunately, due to our frugal choice of a campground it was a 2 hour drive.  And despite my research, I had no idea what it was really like.  I envisioned miles of scenic roads with beautiful beaches and lighthouses, cute little capes and spots to stop and dip your feet in and tide pool.  Nope, nope.  I wish I could say that’s what happened, but it’s not.  It wasn’t all bad, but it wasn’t all good.

I made the mistake of looking up “free things to do on Cape Cod”.  Which gave me a list of somewhat interesting, but atypical things to stop and do along with the National Seashore.  We stopped at a fish hatchery while we waited for the visitor center to open and that was an interesting little spot to feed the fish (man, they make a killing on that pittance of fish food for 25 cents) and wander among tanks of trout with signs that say things like “Do not put your camera in the water”. ???

The Canal visitor center was interesting - I had no idea there was a canal through the cape.  But I guess it spared ships from going all the way around and wrecking (1 every 2 weeks!).  The younger 4 started their little surveys so they could earn their Junior Ranger badge.  A really neat program we have followed at National Parks around the country where the kids have collected little wooden badges for each park we’ve visited.  It’s a very cool way to collect a free souvenir (which is thrilling when you are traveling with 7 children). 

Anyway, 30 minutes in I asked the boys if they were almost finished so we could continue on with our day and the ranger (an older gentleman who seemed very educationally driven - he kept offering helpful pointers to direct the kids) solemnly interjected with “Oh, no, they’re nowhere near finished”.  Now, I have had experience with these things across the country and the rangers vary on how they handle this program.  The older crew project a certain level of importance on the worksheets with a maddeningly high standard.  They’ll critique spelling and grammar, ask detailed questions about your level of knowledge acquired within the last 24 hours, and comment on how “you didn’t seem very interested in this.”  I find these rangers tedious and annoying.  If the spirit of the program is to get kids to enjoy the great outdoors, why the heck are we asking them to spend hours in a visitor’s center filling out worksheets to earn a wooden badge??  But even the most reluctant ranger will begrudgingly award a badge to each child.  Then there’s the younger crew that tries to give it a bit of respect by asking a few friendly questions about what you liked the best about the park while they absently page through your workbook to give an appearance of caring that you tried and say a silly pledge with the kids and hand them their badge.   Then there’s my favorite, the jaded young ranger at Yellowstone who sarcastically clapped for the kids as they came forward with their workbooks, congratulated them on being Yellowstone’s newest junior rangers with sarcasm dripping from her voice while she tossed their books aside without even a glance and practically threw their badges on the table in front of them.  The kids were too little to understand the sarcasm but were wary enough to realize that she wasn’t happy.  We took our badges meekly and left feeling like we had done something wrong.

Realizing this dude was one of the first category, I become alarmed.  I began helping the boys fill in the stupid blanks and once realizing we had spent now 45 minutes in the building, my chest started constricting and I said we were done and we needed to get out. Give them what you did, explain we need to be on our way, it should be fine.  I’ve never had a ranger turn a kid away.  He asked the girls some inane, time-consuming questions about lifejacket and helmet safety before awarding them with a sticker, explaining they were too little to get the badge (I wasn’t present for that one otherwise I would have insisted they get the real one - come on man, what?).  And then paged sorrowfully through the boys SIX SHEET workbook, “I warned you it would take some time to complete.  I’m very sorry, but I won’t be able to award you with a badge today.  I see you didn’t complete this section here and here… it’s just not enough.”  I was too stunned to react.  Never in all our travels have I had a ranger refuse to give the kids the cheap little badge.  I should have insisted but there were people standing around waiting their turn so we left.  We had already spent way too much time in there.  Ludicrous.

But I did send an email to Cape Cod National Park the next day.

Chalk that up as a loss, and onto the next thing.  Parked for an old mill, couldn’t walk the grounds without paying for the tour - it’s only $6 for adults and $3 for children…. Yeah, no.  Onto the next thing… a cool old tower built just for the view. 

And then decided we’d go to a beach and walk the boardwalk and eat lunch.  Only to find it was $25 for the day and the boardwalk was destroyed in the last storm.  “Are all the beaches that much to get into?”  Well yes, it’s for the whole day… No one wanted to pay $25 for a picnic spot so we headed to a trail head on a hill and ate looking over the salt marsh.  That was nice.  Hannah, frustrated that we hadn’t done anything really yet, started marching down the trail because she wanted to see a beach.  Only to find that it went through a swamp.  An hour later we were at the van and decided we’d head to the end of the spit for a time-sensitive hike that we needed to do at low tide.  You hiked a mile out over a stone breakwater to an old lighthouse.  Sounded cool but it was an hour to the end of the Cape.  This place was a lot bigger than I realized.  There were schools and hospitals and miles of trees everywhere.  What I envisioned as a scenic drive was actually a highway through a forest with no end in sight. Oh well, we pressed on to the end in the hopes of something a little more interesting.  We’d do the hike and then work our way back and stop along the national seashore.  We geared up with water and snacks and headed across, distracted a few times by piles and piles of thousands of squid on the shore. 

Unsure why they were there we nonetheless enjoyed a close up of the sea creatures as we went along.  At the end of the breakwater we ran into a guy coming from the other side of the cape and we asked if he’d been to the lighthouse.  “No, no I’ve been swimming with seals!”  He explained we could find a pod of them over on the other side.  “Well that sounds a lot more interesting than an old lighthouse!”  Coming from Micah, the first interest he’d shown at all.  Hannah too picked up the pace to catch the pod and we started over.  At this time, I had 3 calls from some Asheville number come up and I decided I guess I should answer.   Distracted with that for a few minutes, by the time I paid attention to everyone, I realized Tim, Micah Abbey and the two little girls were gone.  “Where did the rest of you go?”  I was confused.  “Dad decided at the last minute to go to the lighthouse but we wanted to go see the seals.  He wasn’t sure how to get over the spit, but we’re going this way.”  Now I was a bit frustrated.  Service was limited, and now we were separated.  We were too far to go back to the lighthouse… we went on but all the while I stewed over when and where we’d meet everyone.  Once we made it to the beach there was a whole pod of seals!   Hannah and the boys followed them further and further down the spit while I worried that we were getting further and further away from wherever everyone was.  Finally I got through to Tim.  “There really are seals out here!”  I was a bit frustrated what I thought had been the plan (the seals) had changed at the last second.  Tim waffled for a moment, they hadn’t made it to the lighthouse yet, and decided they’d come out our way after all.  Then came the long wait for them to make it to us.  I was ready to head back, it had already been a few hours and it would be nice to see something else, but I know the others would like to see the seals.  FINALLY by the time they got out there the seals had moved on.   A random one here and there.  Abbey was frustrated.  Now she had seen neither seals nor lighthouse.  I felt bad and harried and wanted to move on with something else.  Tearing Hannah away from wildlife is a struggle but we finally worked our way back slowly to the van.  It had been 4 hours.  The camper was 2 hours away and it was 5pm. 

The National Seashore was slipping from my grasp.  We stopped briefly at one lighthouse.  Took a picture or two, admired the view.  By the second one, Micah completely rebelled and refused to leave the car.  His teenage body was empty and he was hangry.  Home was the only option.  And it would be 8 pm before we got there.  

As we trucked along we made the plan to do something we rarely do - buy hot food.  The evening spirit was revived as we drove the last 10 minutes to the camper, making everyone wait to dive into the pizza until we could eat it together.  Crammed into the camper (too many bugs outside) we happily ate the rare treat and then dove into a game before bed.  Everyone was happy to be moving onto new sights tomorrow!