The mission for today was democratically decided to be a short road trip to Falmouth with a return along the eastern shore of Buzzard’s Bay which is the body of water between New Bedford and the Cape of Cod.
Our first segment was a freeway drive down to Falmouth and off onto basically city streets into Woods Hole. Woods Hole itself is a tiny little village with beautiful wood-framed houses and a downtown tourist area which, blissfully, only runs for about 2 blocks. Even the tourist area is pretty but once you wander off the main drag you enter almost a little wonderland of New England architecture which is almost magical. The roads are narrow but the traffic was very sparse when we were there.
A good portion of the town of Woods Hole is Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute which must occupy about 60 percent of the available real estate but quite a few of their assets seem to be old buildings and houses which they have done an excellent job of maintaining. It is a great drive through this area and a trip I would gladly repeat.
From Woods Hole we continued north (mostly) up the east shore of Buzzard’s Bay through Falmouth, Quissett, West Falmouth, Sippawisset and North Falmouth before becoming convinced that some comedian named the places and, once he settled on a name, he would use all permutations of the names before quitting. We stopped at a neat little city park named Wooden Neck Beach and Sippawisset Marsh. There were lots of birds to scope out and the parking lot bisects the marsh from the ocean. Peg and I watched as a large, fat gull did battle with a crab that was a dead heat for a minute or two but once the gull ate most of the crab’s legs, things became sort of one-sided with the crab yielding right before the rest of him was devoured. On the marsh side, there are beautiful dark blue backed tree sparrows doing aerobatics over the marsh in their pursuit of tasty flying insects. Their ability to maneuver is amazing. Human pilots following their antics would squirt right out of their shoes due to excessive Gs.
On our way back to Gateway to the Gateway to Cape Cod campground, we stopped in Bourne and picked up some seafood at a place called Sandy’s Seafood. It is a bit difficult to get into the place from the highway but well worth the challenge. Everything is fresh. I had lobster bisque and pub fish and chips and Peg had the clam chowder and clam strips special. I give the bisque a B and Peg gives the chowder an A. The clam strips and fish were tip-top and the best part was the bill was only $22.
From there we had the Garmin find our route home and returned to the GTTGTCC where we did a bit of truck maintenance before our departure from Massachusetts tomorrow. I would conclude my Massachusetts entries with an idiot’s conclusion: This is an interesting state to visit because of the wonderful building architecture, historical attractions and abundant seashore views. On the bad side – the roads are terrible, stuff is expensive, Federal freeways that are better maintained in other states and free require the payment of a toll here for a shit road surface, liquor and tobacco is expensive and a good portion of the folks we encountered seem to be miserable and unsociable. Perhaps none of them smile because they are toothless, but I doubt it. They just seem to be uncomfortable, like prison inmates.
The Gateway to Cape Cod campground is quite nice but there does not seem to be the big gatherings of campers at one trailer we observe in other locales. The folks seem to be sort of skittish about talking with each other. Maybe it is the proximity to so many mega-cities in this part of the world. It is a very short drive from Boston to Philly to New York City to D.C. We have congratulated ourselves and rewarded ourselves for our savvy navigation, cleverly avoiding these loathsome and turgid masses of humanity and remaining in mostly rural environments. We may be becoming hicks.