South Dennis beach at sunset the night we arrived. Absolutely beautiful.
The journey down from Maine to Massachusetts was gorgeous. The farther south we got the more colors we saw in the trees, which was backwards from what I expected. The drive through Boston was a little stressful, but cities are for me. The memories all came back once we headed down the cape. The suicide bridge has changed. There is no longer a rotary before it and no sign warning jumpers that it is a fatal plunge. As a child, the Suicide Hotline billboard always surprised me, and in my head, it is still the suicide bridge.
We found a great RV site in South Dennis that never ended up charging us for our week stay. We tried to pay but no one was there at the booth as they were getting ready to close down for the season. On our last day there was finally someone in the booth, but he was just filling in. We left our name, phone numbers and email, explaining that we had been attempting to pay our weekly fee through out our stay. No one has ever contacted us (maybe they will now), so we stayed for free. I think it was just that they were closing down the park and quite busy getting everything winterized and ready for the off season.
We took Moe with us up to the Cape Cod National Seashore for a day of geocaching. It was our first venture with this new hobby and we had a wonderful time hunting among the dunes for the cache. We had walked around for about 45 minutes within about 10 yards of it and finally found it. No schooling for Lexi on that day, except for PE (hiking the dunes), navigation (using the compass), sequencing and planning (following the steps in order), geography (going through the other items left in the cache, both world and national), weather (watching the clouds roll in across the bay and trying to name them), botany (as we tried to figure out what all the plants were) and on and on. Sometimes I truly believe she learns more on no schooling days !!!
Heading through the dunes trying to follow the compass and figure out if the other footprints were leading us to the cache or just a diversion.
Success !!! She had a blast checking out each item left in the cache.
We spent two separate days up in Plymouth visiting Plymouth Plantation, the Mayflower II and Plymouth Rock. Lexi had such a good time and we all learned so much. She was fascinated with the Wampanoog Indian Village at the plantation and spent a lot of time talking with the people there. She ended up going back to the Indian Villiage after visiting the colonial village for a while.
We were all surprised again at how small the Mayflower II is and it is an exact replica (can that be? exact replica?). There is a picture of Lexi laying down in one of the beds which shows just how small the sleeping area was, if you were even lucky enough to have a bed. And to think a woman gave birth on the boat during its journey to America, with no privacy beyond a cloth curtain and no anesthiosologist!! Oceana was the baby girl's name. We had a beautiful day on the Mayflower, picture perfect Cape Cod day.
I seemed to have crashed on Cape Cod. We had traveled so far under the pressure of making sure we hit New England during fall colors but before winter set in that with the relief came along a head cold and general fatigue as well. I think I slept for about 3 straight days before I came up for air.
We had a wonderful time visiting throughout Cotuit. Lexi got to see Gramma D’s house, the cottage, Oregon Beach and the cove where Gramma's ashes were let out. We did not visit the headstone in the cemetery as it just doesn’t hold much meaning for me, but we had a long talk with Gramma at the site where her ashes were scattered and I know Lexi will remember it forever. That was my goal. I just wish there had been an opportunity for Lexi and Gramma to have known each other. There are times Lexi reminds me of Gramma, swimming with an umbrella or wearing her goofy clothes.
Lexi and I standing outside of the cottage at Hooper's Landing where I stayed one summer when we went to visit gramma.
We missed out on seeing Peter and Marcia and on going to Martha’s Vineyard, but you always have to leave something for the next visit as well, right? A week seemed like plenty of time when we planned it but being in a coma for 3 days kind of cut into our plans.
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