Getting There, Really, Almost Done...
Jul. 23rd, 2012 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ateolfSo we're back to Sea St. Beach (I looked it up). Parking was a bit much but it was a good time. This was on the bay side of the cape so the waves were nonexistent. It was actually kinda freaky how calm the water was. It seemed like a dream, such a massive expanse of such still water. Mary Beth and I went out a bit and were enjoying it when I felt something bump against my foot. I thought it might be a fish but I look down and there's this really big crab. That was pretty cool, then it started walking toward me. Then it kept walking toward me. Then this fucking this is like chasing me. I thought maybe it wanted me out of its area at first but it kept on and on. I'd move a bit and then give it a moment to catch up ('cuz it was cute and fascinating to look at). But the damn thing followed me all the way to the beach. At that point I went the other way and it kept going forward. I'd say we both just happened to be going the same direction, but it kept moving towards me all through the journey. I dunno. We saw a ton more crabs, some hermit, some like this one (I don't know the name, like a standard crab). That first one was the biggest. One other crab saw me and went poof into the sand at the bottom. Then I went behind it as it waited for me to leave and I was near it as it got out and it was kinda freaked out and charged into Mary Beth's direction. It was fun hanging out with the crabs. We also spent a good bit of time floating on our backs. After the bech we thought we'd check out this Cape Cod Museum of Art we'd seen on the map. We thought it might be kinda cheezy and chintzy, but it was really really good. It had a temporary exhibit on the art of Provincetown which was excellent, but then the permanent collection was mostly really good as well. I saw some just fucking amazing art there. It was great. Oh, I suddenly reminded myself of something that happened in Philadelphia very loosely concerning art that I'll need to revisit later, but I'll continue first. Anyway, it was so good I had to pick up the little book about the exhibit: The Tides of Provincetown (Pivotal Years in America's Oldest Continuous Art Colony (1899-2011)). After this we had lunch at this sandwich shop that was very good. The sandwich I had was called Dennis the Menace (see 'cuz the town's name is Dennis). It sounded bizarre and enticing: corned beef, cole slaw, and swiss. It was a great combination (not as good as the god-sandwich I had in Philly, but a great one nonetheless). Also they had this blueberry soup that was spectacular. There was all this art upstairs and I even inquired about purchasing one piece, but the girl couldn't get the owner on the phone and as we were traveling (and probably had spent too much money to justify the purchase anyway) it wasn't worth going through extra trouble. It was nice, if not very similar to the one piece of original art we already own. Then we went to this bookstore a town over (I think it was in Yarmouth, heheh) called Parnassus. It was pretty awesome, just a force to behold. It was this old house filled with books towering over you in every direction. The owner was funny too. This old guy who kept saying not to believe a word the Republicans in town said about him. It was sad that his sweet dog had a week to a month to live (some kind of cancer). I got a few books: A Tomb for Boris Davidovich by Danilo Kiš, Midaq Alley ● The Thief and the Dogs ● Miramar by Naguib Mahfouz, Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera, and Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel García Márquez. Then we had ice cream at this place on the way back as it started to storm. Everyone was freaking out and it looked like it was gonna be crazy, but when it hit it wasn't nothin'.
Okay, pause for breath. Time to go back and mention a few things I forgot in their proper order. Back to Philly. The day we spent in town I wore my Donkey Kong shirt (the one from Threadless that transforms the screen into abstract art: Arcade Expressionism is the title). I got more compliments on a shirt that day than all my shirts together in my entire life. Several people throughout the day, but the best was the dude on the subway. He gave me a thumbs-up (I think) for the shirt and said how much he loves Donkey Kong and that people call him DK. He said he even has his own barrel (that he got at the age of 1...?). Describing him like this makes him seem really nerdy, but he wasn't like that. He was really funny though. Okay, now to Tuesday night on Cape Cod. That was the night we went down to the dock after dinner and got the site of a bunch of seals hanging out and it was pretty awesome. They mostly hung out in pairs. There was also a lone turtle swimming across the water.
Okay, now I believe we're up to Thursday. We had breakfast at this place by a golf course, I guess, called Fairway. I had a lobster frittata and it was really good. Then we went to this place Mary Beth's dad told us about the day before: Lieutenant Island. This was a super-isolated point. You take this small road that gets smaller and smaller. You eventually have to cross a wooden one-lane bridge and continue onto dirt roads. The signs make you believe it's a private area, maybe it is, her dad said to ignore 'em and we did. We walked down the beach and it was pretty isolated. After a little bit a guy came in on a kayak and latter some other people came when we were down at the other end. I made an attempt to take some audio recordings: the birds, the surf, etc. Don't know if any are halfway decent or not. It was overcast, but in a nice way that made the atmosphere on the beach bearable and lovely. There were lots of horseshoe crab shells. The tide started to slowly rise up. After that we made our way into Welfleet's town and hit the motherlode of bookstores: Herridge. Another place with a really awesome selection. I got far too many this time: North by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, The Path to the Nest of Spiders by Italo Calvino, Beyond the Curve by Kobo Abe, Kappa by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, The Island of Crimea by Vassily Aksyonov, Aura by Carlos Fuentes, The Questionnaire by Jiří Gruša, Second Skin by John Hawkes, Saint Glinglin by Raymond Queneau, Monsieur Levert by Robert Pinget, Conquered City by Victor Serge, The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre, The Reprieve by John-Paul Sartre, Troubled Sleep by Jean-Paul Sartre, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson, Misterioso by Gilbert Sorrentino, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick, The Game-Players of Titan by Philip K. Dick, The Best of Myles by Flann O'Brien, and Complete Short Stories by Ronald Firbank (I also got The Divine Invasion by Dick which I thought I might already have and did, but risked it because I didn't wanna get part 3 of the trilogy and pass up on part 2 if I didn't already have it...gave the extra copy to Jacques). Okay, yeah, book overload but that's the end of books for this trip. After that we walked a little bit along the town's beach. Oh, that's the morning we picked up something from the Stop 'n' Shop. They sell Moxie in cans up there. You can get Moxie here in town, but not easily and I've never seen it in cans, in bulk. Well, the day before we picked up a 12 pack for our cooler on the beach, then Thursday morning we went back to stock up so I could have a bunch of Moxie back at home! I got the rest, three more 12 packs. Excessive? Maybe, but you must consider I may very well never see such Moxie again. Been enjoying the hell out of it too. Anyway, we went up to Truro and checked out the Highland House lighthouse. We went up it and it was pretty great. The view was excellent. I could have stayed longer up top but it was really hot behind that glass in that sun. Down a level had a nice breeze in the window as the lady told us about the history of it. Pretty interesting. Erosion's pretty bad on Cape Cod 'cuz the whole damn thing is a giant sandbar, so the whole lighthouse was moved a while back so it wouldn't fall into the ocean. We were going to have swordfish sandwiches at this one place back in Brewster on the way back, but it was closed. I used my navigation prowess to get us down south to Harwich and eat at George's: this Greek pizza place. It was excellent. Back to the house for lobsters with the families.
Friday was the last full day on the cape. It was another amazingly awesome fucking day. This was Provincetown part 2. On the way up we stopped at this French bakery and had some delicious pastries for breakfast. We parked and arrived just in time for our whale watch. This was one of the most amazing and impressive parts of the entire trip. Ooh, suspense. I'm gonna leave you hanging. More in the next post.
Okay, pause for breath. Time to go back and mention a few things I forgot in their proper order. Back to Philly. The day we spent in town I wore my Donkey Kong shirt (the one from Threadless that transforms the screen into abstract art: Arcade Expressionism is the title). I got more compliments on a shirt that day than all my shirts together in my entire life. Several people throughout the day, but the best was the dude on the subway. He gave me a thumbs-up (I think) for the shirt and said how much he loves Donkey Kong and that people call him DK. He said he even has his own barrel (that he got at the age of 1...?). Describing him like this makes him seem really nerdy, but he wasn't like that. He was really funny though. Okay, now to Tuesday night on Cape Cod. That was the night we went down to the dock after dinner and got the site of a bunch of seals hanging out and it was pretty awesome. They mostly hung out in pairs. There was also a lone turtle swimming across the water.
Okay, now I believe we're up to Thursday. We had breakfast at this place by a golf course, I guess, called Fairway. I had a lobster frittata and it was really good. Then we went to this place Mary Beth's dad told us about the day before: Lieutenant Island. This was a super-isolated point. You take this small road that gets smaller and smaller. You eventually have to cross a wooden one-lane bridge and continue onto dirt roads. The signs make you believe it's a private area, maybe it is, her dad said to ignore 'em and we did. We walked down the beach and it was pretty isolated. After a little bit a guy came in on a kayak and latter some other people came when we were down at the other end. I made an attempt to take some audio recordings: the birds, the surf, etc. Don't know if any are halfway decent or not. It was overcast, but in a nice way that made the atmosphere on the beach bearable and lovely. There were lots of horseshoe crab shells. The tide started to slowly rise up. After that we made our way into Welfleet's town and hit the motherlode of bookstores: Herridge. Another place with a really awesome selection. I got far too many this time: North by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, The Path to the Nest of Spiders by Italo Calvino, Beyond the Curve by Kobo Abe, Kappa by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, The Island of Crimea by Vassily Aksyonov, Aura by Carlos Fuentes, The Questionnaire by Jiří Gruša, Second Skin by John Hawkes, Saint Glinglin by Raymond Queneau, Monsieur Levert by Robert Pinget, Conquered City by Victor Serge, The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre, The Reprieve by John-Paul Sartre, Troubled Sleep by Jean-Paul Sartre, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson, Misterioso by Gilbert Sorrentino, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick, The Game-Players of Titan by Philip K. Dick, The Best of Myles by Flann O'Brien, and Complete Short Stories by Ronald Firbank (I also got The Divine Invasion by Dick which I thought I might already have and did, but risked it because I didn't wanna get part 3 of the trilogy and pass up on part 2 if I didn't already have it...gave the extra copy to Jacques). Okay, yeah, book overload but that's the end of books for this trip. After that we walked a little bit along the town's beach. Oh, that's the morning we picked up something from the Stop 'n' Shop. They sell Moxie in cans up there. You can get Moxie here in town, but not easily and I've never seen it in cans, in bulk. Well, the day before we picked up a 12 pack for our cooler on the beach, then Thursday morning we went back to stock up so I could have a bunch of Moxie back at home! I got the rest, three more 12 packs. Excessive? Maybe, but you must consider I may very well never see such Moxie again. Been enjoying the hell out of it too. Anyway, we went up to Truro and checked out the Highland House lighthouse. We went up it and it was pretty great. The view was excellent. I could have stayed longer up top but it was really hot behind that glass in that sun. Down a level had a nice breeze in the window as the lady told us about the history of it. Pretty interesting. Erosion's pretty bad on Cape Cod 'cuz the whole damn thing is a giant sandbar, so the whole lighthouse was moved a while back so it wouldn't fall into the ocean. We were going to have swordfish sandwiches at this one place back in Brewster on the way back, but it was closed. I used my navigation prowess to get us down south to Harwich and eat at George's: this Greek pizza place. It was excellent. Back to the house for lobsters with the families.
Friday was the last full day on the cape. It was another amazingly awesome fucking day. This was Provincetown part 2. On the way up we stopped at this French bakery and had some delicious pastries for breakfast. We parked and arrived just in time for our whale watch. This was one of the most amazing and impressive parts of the entire trip. Ooh, suspense. I'm gonna leave you hanging. More in the next post.
