The Next Part
Jul. 23rd, 2012 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ateolfGoing back to the toilets thing I mentioned: your standard big city fare. Philadelphia does not have much in the way of public restrooms. Even in a restaurant establishment you patronize and eat at (and that's not even a tiny little hole in the wall), there often isn't even a restaurant for paying/dining customers. So finding somewhere to go can be a challenge. Had one in particular after Paesano's and went all over the place looking for one with many of my standard tricks thrown out the window. Nothing too exciting, that's all.
So I believe I left us off on our way to dinner with Rob and Rachel. It was really good. The place was fancy and surprisingly huge for being in the downtown area. It was hip but the food was good. There was a bunch of stuff and we all passed around and shared as is the way with family style. Before this, during the day, my thighs had started chaffing. Instead of walking straight back the way we went, we started on a tour of the downtown area where we started out towards a subway stop that wasn't as close in order to see more. Well, we ended up walking all the way back to their apartment (and not in a straight line either). That's fine, it was a fun walk. We even got to see the Liberty Bell. This was not kind of my already chaffed thighs, but it was a really nice night and a nice time. On the way back to the hotel after we had parted ways with Rob and Rachel, we went back to that bar we thought might have rejected us, but got in no problem and they were even nice and stuff. The atmosphere was actually pretty cool inside. If it weren't for the not-drinking, it'd be the place to hang out all the time and stuff.
The next morning we got up early again to head on out of the city to Cape Cod. We couldn't leave Philly without a cheesesteak so we went down the street til we found a neighborhood place we could get one. It did not take long at all. Really just down the street from the hotel we hit a little neighborhood deli/cafe or whatever and had a couple cheesesteaks and they were great. I washed it down with a Black Cherry Wishniak and even had some Tastycakes. I felt pretty hardcore Philly there. Well, off to the next place. This was another horrible day of driving. Traffic was just awful, as I guess it generally is in the eastern corridor. New Jersey sucked and was backed up. Then our route had us going through Manhattan on the fucking Washington Bridge. And up to about halfway through Connecticut it was all just bumper to bumper with tons of stops and just general traffic hellishness. Oh, I forgot to mention in conjunction with the previous driving day: most people in this part of the country know how to get out of the left lane when not passing. Most of the trip we made good driving time, but not this part. Well, after all that junk we got into Chatham on the cape and found the house Mary Beth's parents had rented along with the other family we were staying with: Judd and Jeanine and their two little kids: Jr. and Bailey. After dinner and meeting everyone we went out and drove around the area to check things out, get the lay of the land. After driving around we stopped off at this bar that, I guess, serves as something of a club for the locals with nothing else to do. There were lots of funny license plates covering the walls so we spent most of the time laughing at and discussing those.
Okay, now we're up to our frist full day on the cape: Sunday. We were kinda lazy about getting up at first, but we went and had breakfast/lunch at what I believe was called Hangar B. It's on the little town airport. While eating really good food, we twice saw people skydive into the field across from us as well as other small planes taking off. Then we went to the Chatham beach. The water there was really fucking cold. Mary Beth remembers it as so from her childhood. She loved it. I got in and tolerated it, but it's a bit cold for my personal taste. Most freaking me out about the water was being swarmed by these tiny fish that made me think of flies in the water. Anyway, I can't remember much else we did that day. It was a low-key first day. Maybe there's something else we did and I can't remember now. I'll update if I'm leaving something out. A good bit of the evening was spent at the house grilling out and stuff.
I believe we had another day of a lazy start. We started up a little bit into the forearm of the cape. We had breakfast or lunch or whatever at this place called Chocolate Sparrow and then we were going to go to First Encounter Beach (mostly for the historical bent, not the beach itself), but just to park was $20 so we were like screw that. A lot of the cape was like that, but here we didn't think it was worth it for what we were going for. Instead we went to this nearby natural sanctuary. It was really nice. We walked around on the trail and went way out to the beach via this boardwalk through the salt marsh. It was just fucking beautiful. The colors: the green of the reeds, the blue of the sky and water, the brownish yellow of the sand. And the best part was the swarm of fiddle crabs. These tiny things working on their holes in the sand. Mary Beth said it was like stop-motion the way you'd move and they'd suddenly disappear into the holes right next to them and skitter about. We tried to go to Nauset beach, but the parking lot was full (and there was nowhere around, parking on the cape was a bit of bitch in that it just wasn't allowed about anywhere). Right nearby (at a place you could park for 30 minutes) we saw these Three Sisters lighthouses and looked at them for a minute. After that we went to Marconi Beach, which was my favorite beach. The water was nicer and the waves were pretty great. Mary Beth and I went out and body surfed and I tried to get pummeled as best I could. It was a lot of fun. We ended the day by stopping by the Beachcomber bar. I had a few ginger beers. We were there pretty late and then got kinda lost trying to get back home. I turned in the wrong direction in one place. After that I had my internal map down pretty good, but we got pretty lost for a minute there.
Tuesday was an awesome day. It was our first forray into Provincetown (my favorite part of the cape). We were going to go on a whale watch, but found they were full so bought tickets for one on Friday. Well, we were there so plan b was to poke around town. Stopped at the nearby Portugese bakery then started walking in one direction. We went in the direction that quickly became a long row of nothing but art galleries. A lot of the art was really good. We found the Provincetown Art Association and Museum and that was really awesome. About half the museum was closed due to working on it or moving stuff around or whatever so we got in real cheap. The two rooms that were available were pretty great. They had this awesome shirt in the gift shop I wanted to get, but the guy couldn't find the price and then all they had were smalls and mediums anyway (he was certain by looking at me that I couldn't pull off a medium). More walking and looking at good art. We started in the other direction (but didn't finish). We got a Jackson Pollock puzzle in the game store. I know it's gonna be hard, but I just got it 'cuz I liked the picture. I'm sure I'll regret that later. We stopped at a couple bookstores, one had new books and the other (Tim's) had used. It's in this house kinda behind the other shops and you have to walk down this path to get to it. I thought it was pretty awesome, small but the selection was good. I got: The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai, Puttering about in a Small Land by Philip K. Dick, and The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces 1839-1860 by Herman Melville (the Dick I'd never heard of and it was kinda expensive too, but I'm excited about it). A little more walking and it was time to head back. On the way back home we stopped and had fried seafood at Arnold's. This was great stuff, we got the basked for two and it had: scallops, shrimp, oysters, calamari, whitefish, and mussels (so good!). Mary Beth went with her mom and Jeanine to a market and I went to the gym. The YMCA was a bit of a ways away kind've in the middle of the beginning of the cape (in Barnstable). It was okay. At first I didn't think they had free weghts, but then found they did. I got sunburned on Sunday (put suncreen on with my shirt on and didn't add more when I took it off at the beach). Squatting with sunburnt shoulders was a little uncomfortable. Anyway, yeah most of the rest of the trip was me contending with horribly chaffed thighs and sunburnt shoulders. I should add that the place we stayed had a ping pong table in the basement. I don't remember if it was this night, but twice Mary Beth and I played some ping pong and it was awesome.
Wednesday was the day we stayed in the bicep area. We went to this little place right on Sesuit Harbor that had lobster rolls (which we had too). We sat at picnic tables by the water and enjoyed the pretty view on the little harbor. Then we got to Dennis and realized we were low on cash so made a mad dash to find an atm. We went to a beach over there too. I first wanted to go to Cold Storage Beach (for the name, yes, This Heat reference), but it said it was a private beach so we went to the beach next to it (Sea St. Beach, Seaside St. Beach? something like that). Well, you'll hear more about whatever this beach was called in a future post.
So I believe I left us off on our way to dinner with Rob and Rachel. It was really good. The place was fancy and surprisingly huge for being in the downtown area. It was hip but the food was good. There was a bunch of stuff and we all passed around and shared as is the way with family style. Before this, during the day, my thighs had started chaffing. Instead of walking straight back the way we went, we started on a tour of the downtown area where we started out towards a subway stop that wasn't as close in order to see more. Well, we ended up walking all the way back to their apartment (and not in a straight line either). That's fine, it was a fun walk. We even got to see the Liberty Bell. This was not kind of my already chaffed thighs, but it was a really nice night and a nice time. On the way back to the hotel after we had parted ways with Rob and Rachel, we went back to that bar we thought might have rejected us, but got in no problem and they were even nice and stuff. The atmosphere was actually pretty cool inside. If it weren't for the not-drinking, it'd be the place to hang out all the time and stuff.
The next morning we got up early again to head on out of the city to Cape Cod. We couldn't leave Philly without a cheesesteak so we went down the street til we found a neighborhood place we could get one. It did not take long at all. Really just down the street from the hotel we hit a little neighborhood deli/cafe or whatever and had a couple cheesesteaks and they were great. I washed it down with a Black Cherry Wishniak and even had some Tastycakes. I felt pretty hardcore Philly there. Well, off to the next place. This was another horrible day of driving. Traffic was just awful, as I guess it generally is in the eastern corridor. New Jersey sucked and was backed up. Then our route had us going through Manhattan on the fucking Washington Bridge. And up to about halfway through Connecticut it was all just bumper to bumper with tons of stops and just general traffic hellishness. Oh, I forgot to mention in conjunction with the previous driving day: most people in this part of the country know how to get out of the left lane when not passing. Most of the trip we made good driving time, but not this part. Well, after all that junk we got into Chatham on the cape and found the house Mary Beth's parents had rented along with the other family we were staying with: Judd and Jeanine and their two little kids: Jr. and Bailey. After dinner and meeting everyone we went out and drove around the area to check things out, get the lay of the land. After driving around we stopped off at this bar that, I guess, serves as something of a club for the locals with nothing else to do. There were lots of funny license plates covering the walls so we spent most of the time laughing at and discussing those.
Okay, now we're up to our frist full day on the cape: Sunday. We were kinda lazy about getting up at first, but we went and had breakfast/lunch at what I believe was called Hangar B. It's on the little town airport. While eating really good food, we twice saw people skydive into the field across from us as well as other small planes taking off. Then we went to the Chatham beach. The water there was really fucking cold. Mary Beth remembers it as so from her childhood. She loved it. I got in and tolerated it, but it's a bit cold for my personal taste. Most freaking me out about the water was being swarmed by these tiny fish that made me think of flies in the water. Anyway, I can't remember much else we did that day. It was a low-key first day. Maybe there's something else we did and I can't remember now. I'll update if I'm leaving something out. A good bit of the evening was spent at the house grilling out and stuff.
I believe we had another day of a lazy start. We started up a little bit into the forearm of the cape. We had breakfast or lunch or whatever at this place called Chocolate Sparrow and then we were going to go to First Encounter Beach (mostly for the historical bent, not the beach itself), but just to park was $20 so we were like screw that. A lot of the cape was like that, but here we didn't think it was worth it for what we were going for. Instead we went to this nearby natural sanctuary. It was really nice. We walked around on the trail and went way out to the beach via this boardwalk through the salt marsh. It was just fucking beautiful. The colors: the green of the reeds, the blue of the sky and water, the brownish yellow of the sand. And the best part was the swarm of fiddle crabs. These tiny things working on their holes in the sand. Mary Beth said it was like stop-motion the way you'd move and they'd suddenly disappear into the holes right next to them and skitter about. We tried to go to Nauset beach, but the parking lot was full (and there was nowhere around, parking on the cape was a bit of bitch in that it just wasn't allowed about anywhere). Right nearby (at a place you could park for 30 minutes) we saw these Three Sisters lighthouses and looked at them for a minute. After that we went to Marconi Beach, which was my favorite beach. The water was nicer and the waves were pretty great. Mary Beth and I went out and body surfed and I tried to get pummeled as best I could. It was a lot of fun. We ended the day by stopping by the Beachcomber bar. I had a few ginger beers. We were there pretty late and then got kinda lost trying to get back home. I turned in the wrong direction in one place. After that I had my internal map down pretty good, but we got pretty lost for a minute there.
Tuesday was an awesome day. It was our first forray into Provincetown (my favorite part of the cape). We were going to go on a whale watch, but found they were full so bought tickets for one on Friday. Well, we were there so plan b was to poke around town. Stopped at the nearby Portugese bakery then started walking in one direction. We went in the direction that quickly became a long row of nothing but art galleries. A lot of the art was really good. We found the Provincetown Art Association and Museum and that was really awesome. About half the museum was closed due to working on it or moving stuff around or whatever so we got in real cheap. The two rooms that were available were pretty great. They had this awesome shirt in the gift shop I wanted to get, but the guy couldn't find the price and then all they had were smalls and mediums anyway (he was certain by looking at me that I couldn't pull off a medium). More walking and looking at good art. We started in the other direction (but didn't finish). We got a Jackson Pollock puzzle in the game store. I know it's gonna be hard, but I just got it 'cuz I liked the picture. I'm sure I'll regret that later. We stopped at a couple bookstores, one had new books and the other (Tim's) had used. It's in this house kinda behind the other shops and you have to walk down this path to get to it. I thought it was pretty awesome, small but the selection was good. I got: The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai, Puttering about in a Small Land by Philip K. Dick, and The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces 1839-1860 by Herman Melville (the Dick I'd never heard of and it was kinda expensive too, but I'm excited about it). A little more walking and it was time to head back. On the way back home we stopped and had fried seafood at Arnold's. This was great stuff, we got the basked for two and it had: scallops, shrimp, oysters, calamari, whitefish, and mussels (so good!). Mary Beth went with her mom and Jeanine to a market and I went to the gym. The YMCA was a bit of a ways away kind've in the middle of the beginning of the cape (in Barnstable). It was okay. At first I didn't think they had free weghts, but then found they did. I got sunburned on Sunday (put suncreen on with my shirt on and didn't add more when I took it off at the beach). Squatting with sunburnt shoulders was a little uncomfortable. Anyway, yeah most of the rest of the trip was me contending with horribly chaffed thighs and sunburnt shoulders. I should add that the place we stayed had a ping pong table in the basement. I don't remember if it was this night, but twice Mary Beth and I played some ping pong and it was awesome.
Wednesday was the day we stayed in the bicep area. We went to this little place right on Sesuit Harbor that had lobster rolls (which we had too). We sat at picnic tables by the water and enjoyed the pretty view on the little harbor. Then we got to Dennis and realized we were low on cash so made a mad dash to find an atm. We went to a beach over there too. I first wanted to go to Cold Storage Beach (for the name, yes, This Heat reference), but it said it was a private beach so we went to the beach next to it (Sea St. Beach, Seaside St. Beach? something like that). Well, you'll hear more about whatever this beach was called in a future post.
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