On Tuesday morning, we headed out towards Cape Cod to explore one of New England's favorite beach getaway. We took I-93 south until we found state road 3, the Pilgrim's Highway. Highway 3 turns into Highway 6, which takes you to Provincetown at the end of Cape Cod. Izzy's parents had been there recently and told us it wasn't worth the 2 hour drive to see a small lighthouse. We decided we'd drive halfway up to around the eastern coast near Loagy Bay. On our way there, we meandered through some fun named places like Braintree and Sandwich. It's fun to ride through places with fun names like England has. Our first stop along the Pilgrim's Highway was in Plymouth.
Below is a picture of the rock with the year the pilgrims landed in Massachusetts engraved on it. I wasn't terribly excited to see it as I had recently read some interesting notes on the actual history of the pilgrims arrival in Bill Bryson's book
Made in America. Most Americans have a vision of our history that involves Plymouth Rock being the initial landing site of the pilgrims. In fact, Plymouth Rock was the fourth or fifth place they tried to come ashore. None of the documents that survived from the initial colony even made mention of the rock. It's first mention was nearly a century later in 1715. The rock was actually made famous by a Welsh poet(Felicia Dorothea Hemans) that had never heard of nor seen the rock until fate would have it that she had some parcels wrapped in old newspaper that mentioned an anniversary celebration in Plymouth in 1826. She rushed home and dashed off a poem that would forever cement in our modern history the imagery associated with the pilgrims landing. Along with the rock, there is a boat made to be a replica of the
Mayflower. It costs a few dollars and seems like something to entertain the kids. Across the street from the harbor were several trinket and souvenir shops looking to make a buck off of tourism.
We wandered back towards the parking area and noticed some statues and plaques up on the hill. Not letting the tall stairs deter us, we headed up and found that they were all paying homage to the Native American Indians that lost their lives after the pilgrims arrived. As Bryson documents further, the natives were a bit reserved at letting the newcomers approach them and fled each time into the woods. Finally, a native named Samoset befriended them and helped them to learn how to grow food and catch animals. Both Samoset and Squanto spoke English as both had had contact with English explorers years earlier. Squanto was even taken to England where he learned English.
We marched on east, stopping in Barnstable to have lunch at a nice French cafe called Pain d'Avignon. The weather was perfect out and we even were able to watch some small local planes landing at the airstrip next to the cafe. From there, we meandered through Yarmouth, Brewster, Kent's Point on our way to the beach. We stopped at Nauset Beach. To our surprise, when we walked out on the beach, we found a group of sea lions swimming just off the shore. They splashed and played and put on a show for everyone there. To my surprise, there were actually people swimming too. It felt nice out but not quite hot enough to merit and dip in water that cold.
From there, we headed back to Boston as we had plans to see a friend from Madrid that moved back to Boston. She took us to a bar that has a great view of the city.
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