The Beaver Lodge on Cape Cod

We weren't entirely sure whether we were going to go out to Cape Cod. The weather on our first day was not going to be great and when you look at this park on Google maps, the park is deceivingly tiny. Not at all the truth in reality! There is so much to do here. One of the nice things is that we were able to get out and use the bikes. Mike and I weren't sure we were going to be able to take them, but his co-worker Rich was kind enough to provide us with a bike rack that swings out to the side of the van, still allowing us to open the rear doors.

Make sure that you stop at Salt Pond visitors center. There is a cute video, a nice gift shop, and really friendly Rangers to help you get started in Cape Cod. Also there is about a 3.5 Km bike ride that takes you down to the beach. It's called Coast Guard Beach, and you can see above some of our pictures from it.

While we were on the beach we had lots of seals that were very interested in watching us. They're not friendly at all so you have to be very careful to keep your distance. Luckily they were in the water so there was no worry.

As you can see from this photograph, there's also a lot of crabbing that goes on offshore. All along the beach there are washed-up, banged-up crab pots. I hope that we get to do crabs and mussels at some point as we make our way up the Atlantic seaboard.

Next we went to Nauset Beach. The lighthouse is not open for us to go up but we really did enjoy seeing it working. I'm not sure that I knew that both Mike and I really like lighthouses. Another thing is that we are both obsessed with our National Park passes. They're like little passports to the National Park system and you can get a sticker and a stamp at most of the parks. I picked up one for Mike when I was in the Shenandoahs. Now we both have them and we run around making sure that we both get all the cancellations. Here's a picture showing them.

You can see that there are multiple cancellations per area. So basically every time we go to another National Park headquarters there's a new stamp.

Next we did a hike and bike. The hike was through a beautiful swampy area. It was called the Atlantic White Cedar Swamp Trail. This area has been through primary and secondary succession, which I find absolutely fascinating. It started out as a barren area after the glaciers retreated from the last ice age. Then slowly it's been becoming a pine forest and eventually it will become a hardwood forest. A lot of the Cape is undergoing the same change. If you would like to do this walk, it's off the Marconi Station site about 1/4 way up the Cape.

We then moved on to Head of the Meadow Beach. From here we took a 3.8 km bike ride to Parabolic Dunes. This was a bike ride that allowed us to see a totally different marsh-like area of the park. It also brought us out to sand dunes that I can only describe as ones that were similar to what I saw in parts of Morocco and Egypt. This is a lovely and remote area if you're looking for somewhere quiet to watch the ocean.

We ate dinner at Province Lands visitors center. Then decided to go to Race Point beach to see the sunset. Just as a note for all the RV travelers out there, you can get a permit for $75 to stay at this beach for a week. It seems like people were taking advantage of it. You can also get a separate permit to have fires on the beach, which is something that I would love to come back and do.

We went up to Provincetown this evening. No good pictures to post because it was sort of a cross between the Jersey Shore and Rehoboth beach. I was a tiny bit disappointed because it was so touristy. I had hoped it would be a cute Beach town rather than a tourist town. They did have the largest granite structure in the United States though. It's called the Pilgrim Memorial and it really allows you to orient yourself almost anywhere on the Northern Cape. We were even able to see it from a walk that I'll tell you about a little later. This was also worsened by the fact that we slept by the side of the road near a liquor store where a Russian couple had a full-blown fight at 2:00 in the morning. Oh well, we can't always have the perfect place to sleep.

We decided to leave the Cape today but on the way out wanted to stop at a few places. The first place that we went to was the Highland Light. You can see it above in the photograph. It was a beautiful lighthouse with a nice museum attached. We didn't climb up the tower because we thought it was too expensive at $8 a person. The big thing that we did today was to go on the Great Island Trail hike. The hike starts out going around a place called The Gut and it's attached to Wellfleet Harbor. You then cross over a set of sand dunes and walk all the way up along Cape Cod Bay. This is an incredibly beautiful walk but unfortunately all in the sun! Even my 70 SPF sun screen couldn't save me from getting burned.

We then crossed over the dunes towards Wellfleet Harbor and the marsh area. Here we saw a parade of tens of thousands of fiddler crabs. It was really amazing and fun to watch them run away ahead of us in enormous groups.

After the marsh area we went through two wooded areas across Great Beach Hill and then across the Great Island. The odd thing is that it's not actually an island at all anymore. The ocean giveth and the ocean taketh away! And in this case she has given so much that the island gained an isthmus and gave up its island status altogether.

It was nice because this microclimate is quite rare. There was shade which made me and my sunburn quite happy. Luckily I was wearing a hat so my face has remained unscathed. I guess I just forgot that I need to spray the back of my legs whenever we're out like this.

On the way out I wanted to see the Cape Cod potato chips factory. Mike was kind enough to take a little side trip to allow me to see it and do a tour.

We then made our way back to Plymouth for the night.

We loved the view so much that we came back to the exact same parking lot. It's just nice to know exactly where the van is going to be ahead of time. No need to drive in circles trying to find somewhere to put it. We're on to Salem tomorrow and then up to Maine. If you'd like to see some videos of this time, head over to YouTube. We love it. If you subscribe to it, you'll always know when we put up new videos.