A grey Saturday trip to Cape Cod. My favourite kind!
Despite living just a couple of hours away from the preppiest destination on the East Coast, neither Lia nor I had ever visited Cape Cod. So when our friends, Katie and Jake, suggested a day trip, we were glad for the chance to go before we move to Seattle in July.
As the week leading up to our trip went on, the weather looked iffy, but luckily it held for almost the whole day. But it was enough to keep most of the other tourists away, so we got a very quiet Cape experience!
Being from LA, Katie had never been to a farm before, so she'd found one along the way that we stopped at after flipping off enough cars with Trump bumper stickers. A good job too, as I was in desperate need of the bathroom. I couldn't find one immediately when we pulled in, so I found a nice bush. I probably should've looked a little harder. This gem wasn't far away.
My Shrek fandom aside, there were some other cute animals on the small, but endearing city-owned farm.
The town we were going to, Chatham, was only a couple of hours away via car. I remember growing up in the U.K., when the two hour drive to my grandparents' house in Bristol seemed like an eternity. But after driving across the country last summer, two hours isn't even long enough to get into a good podcast. Full bladder aside, the drive was a breeze, even in the back seat of Jake's Mini!
Jake said his allergies were playing up due to the grass that was being mown by a volunteer, so we began to head out. But I think he was just scared of the man on the mower who chased him around a tree.
Once we left the socialist animals to their windmill, we headed to the main attraction: the Chatham Shark Center. I left my camera in the car as it was a small indoor building, but it had a corn hole set out front that was unoccupied (nearly unheard of for a corn hole set in a white area!), a lovely researcher who gave us loads of information about sharks and the town, and two virtual reality headsets to swim with sharks! My memory is pretty terrible anyway, so thinking back, it felt like I actually swam with sharks! The future, man.
We headed to Fish Pier on our new guide's recommendation, which is one of Chatham's main attractions, and Lia instantly spotted... a seal. No sharks, thankfully. Then she looked really pretty against a very impressive sky and I took her photo.
I really enjoyed taking photos at Fish Pier. Everything was so hardy and weather-beaten, including the people, and it was such a departure from what you'd imagine coastal New England to look like. It helped that the sky was moody too, giving everything a heightened sense of drama, and making the subtle, but rich colours of the pier pop against the grey.
We wandered down to the little beach off one side, and watched fishermen come in, and birds dance around in the algae. I loved the colour of the algae as it met the sea, and the water was superbly clear and still. Almost none of the boats were in use. Maybe because it was a Sunday, but they looked like they could just live there, purely for their picturesque nature and birds to crap on.
I also adored these little dinghies ties up at the dock, their pristine whites contrasting so vividly with the shabbiness of the rest of the textures and surfaces of the immediate area.
Beginning to get hungry from the smell of frying fish nearby, we hopped back in the car and headed into town.
After a quick stop at an antiques store on a hill, Lia found a fish n chips shop a few minutes walk away. We set off in search of battered seafood, and weren't disappointed with the result, even as it began to rain.
Our final stop, tummies now full, was for a lighthouse. We figured it would just be rude to traverse New England's coastal terrain and not snap at least one photo of a cute lighthouse.
The Chatham lighthouse was a bit of a letdown as it was both small and difficult to get close to due to the fence. Then again, most lighthouses are disappointing compared to the Portland Head lighthouse Lia and I saw last year. But there was a lovely beach opposite this one that we spent some time walking around and filling all of our inappropriately hip boots with sand.
Some local teens were playing Kan Jam, Spikeball, and generally having a merry grey beach day, when they noticed that their friends were playing the music back at the house too loud. How terribly responsible of them. As they walked off, in front of the large American flag in one of the houses' yards, it just looked like one of the most quintessentially American scenes.
Lia wandered off toward the dunes, and I followed slowly behind, snapping away. I had an idea.
The dunes reminded me of the sandy hills Brad Pitt rolled down for his GQ Style shoot. So I made Lia help me recreate the photo because I thought it would be really funny. It was. I got a lot of sand in my boot and my underwear, but it was worth it.
She also got a pretty sweet action shot of me getting into position, before I ungracefully assumed my prostrate pose.
After I'd finished brushing sand out of my underwear waistband, I made her clamber up the dune so I could take her photo because she's still really pretty.
And here's some more of her, because I'm a sap and can't get enough of her.
She snapped a few photos herself while she was up there.
That's pretty much all I gots to say about that, and as nobody is paying me to write these things, I don't feel obliged to include a nice ending or conclusion. So bai for now! We're heading to Asheville with my Mum at the end of the month, so I'm sure I'll have plenty of photos to share form that when we get back. I'm off to do laundry now though! Toodles.
