“The time must come when this coast (Cape Cod) will be a place of resort for those New-Englanders who really wish to visit the sea-side. At present it is wholly unknown to the fashionable world, and probably it will never be agreeable to them. If it is merely a ten-pin alley, or a circular railway, or an ocean of mint-julep, that the visitor is in search of, — if he thinks more of the wine than the brine, as I suspect some do at Newport, — I trust that for a long time he will be disappointed here. But this shore will never be more attractive than it is now.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod
Gradually, gradually starting to feel more like myself again. This is the seventh day back up here, back with P and cool weather and the Corning Glass Works whistle followed by the bell tower chiming the hour. Beyond that only a surfeit of silence, fall's feeble light barely illuminating this workspace. Perfection.
An outsized portion of this inner serenity flows from the news Friday night that I'd passed the MPRE. It wasn't even close. After I took the exam and read that New York requires an 85 to pass, I brooded over the fact that this meant I could only miss a handful of questions, and the arcana they tested left me guessing too many times for comfort. As it turned out, that was 85 out of 150, not 100.
So I'll spend a chunk of this morning filling out the New York bar application, with two bar examinations and the MPRE now complete. Hoping this part won't take long.
In an impulsive and celebratory state of mind Friday evening, I plotted with P to take a trip that carried a little more sense of adventure and play than these five hour drones back-and-forth to Florida. Where to go? Hey, you've never been to Cape Cod, and I was last there when I was eight-years-old. We love watching Wings on the computer in bed most evenings these days--what about Nantucket?
Well, rooms there start at around $600 a night, with many accommodations topping $1,000. That's a lot of home repairs we'd have to forgo.
Peg asks about Martha's Vineyard. I take a quick trip through Expedia and find much the same--all the beautiful people there will just have to do without us.
Then I dial up Foreflight on my phone, and look for airports on the Cape. There at the very tip of Cape Cod lies Provincetown, with its little airport and 3,500 foot runway tucked between the dunes.
We knew pretty much nothing about the place, except that the Pilgrims landed there before they made their way across the bay to what became Plymouth. But Expedia offered a room across the street from the water for a shade over $200, a bargain for the area. Why not? Who's up for a new adventure?
After we ate a leisurely breakfast waiting for the fog to burn off, we departed on a brilliant sunny Saturday morning, heading east over the Catskills, crossing the Hudson just north of West Point, then hit the coast near Groton and ventured out over the ocean toward Cape Cod.
Ever wonder what the world looks like as a pilot? The above is a VFR sectional chart, showing the flight plan I actually filed before air traffic control shifted the trip further south. That red blob is the Boston Class B airspace, the "Bravo" as it's called on the radios, a protected column of space for aircraft landing and departing at Logan Field. Apparently my original plan took us a little too close to the Bravo, so we were redirected onto a longer and more scenic route via Connecticut.
The run over the top of Martha's Vineyard, Otis Air National Guard Base, and then the Mass Bay into P-town was spectacular. Peg took lots of photos, which I'll post here if and when I have them.
After landing we wandered around the FBO looking lost, until we finally found an unlocked door just before P's bladder exploded. The nice lady at the Cape Air counter collected our landing fee, and directed us to a shuttle that drove us down into the town center through a chaparral of yellow dunes and gnarled pitch pines and oaks. A young man who flew his lady love down from Beverly chatted us up about the Columbia--his family had just bought a place in Palm Beach, and he was looking for a means of getting back-and-forth. His squeeze gave off a weird vibe, her back to him and staring out the window the whole time. Definitely not an airplane person.
Provincetown looks like most other quaint little New England fishing villages, with shingle-sided, weathered homes crammed together along a shoreline dotted with boats grounded by the falling tide.
Soon we started to notice the rainbow flags, flying from every building an across Commercial Street. Hundreds and hundreds of rainbow flags. And a "Pride Taxi" with a rainbow decal in the window. And art galleries displaying in the windows oil paintings of shirtless, chiseled men leading horses by the bridle, hauling boats onto shore, and doing various other manly, Putinesque things.
You see, P-town has branded itself as a gay vacation mecca. We missed that one in our hasty, wine-soddened internet research.
Not that it particularly mattered. What bothered us more was the long, long walk from the town center to our hotel, through streets crammed with folks who'd disembarked from a cruise ship moored at the T of the pier. P and I aren't much for crowds, less so every day it seems. This wasn't our cup of chowder.
Finally a nice young Russian man with a bicycle taxi offered to deliver the two panting Floridians to our hotel for only a tip, which I gladly handed over in exchange for being able to throw the luggage onto his little cart and rest for a couple minutes.
The hotel was a crumbling old edifice from the 1970s, cinder block with all the charm of a Navy VOQ. It was clean, however, and right across from the bay. We bought a preprandial and plopped down in a shady spot out front, marveling at the lumbering, mostly obese folks frolicking in the pool. No chiseled gay men here on the east end of town. And although it's all well-and-good to be comfortable with one's body, most of these folks would've done well to find a wrap or an oversized t-shirt. As in really, really oversized.
Around 4:30 we walked across the street to the neighborhood Italian restaurant jutting out on pilings over the beach, figuring we'd have a glass of wine and ponder what we should do with our evening. Our bartender was Billy, a nice young man from Kansas City who reminded me for all the world of my Drew. Peg and Billy waxed nostalgic about old neighborhoods and schools, while I watched folks lounge around on the beach outside and pondered what sort of bar would devote its one TV screen to tennis when it was a Saturday during college football season. Philistines.
Our 4:30 glass of wine turned into a 5:30 supper of seafood pasta, a sure sign we are becoming geriatrics. But if you're hungry at 5:30, why not eat? It's better for your gut, you know.
After supper we wandered out onto the sand and snapped some of the finest sunset photos you'll ever see.
Then we walked back up to the room, thinking we'd relax and I would watch USC battle Stanford, but our circadian rhythm had other ideas. P slipped off to the Land of Nod within seconds of curling up in bed, and I found I couldn't keep my eyes open either. Lights out, at eight o'clock.
And so things remained until seven the next morning. Eleven hours of sleep instead of a Saturday evening exploring a town that I'm sure has an interesting nightlife. Clearly we were tired.
The next morning we wandered far less crowded streets, admiring the architecture and finally locating a decent espresso at the Wired Puppy, served by an almost indecipherable Russian girl. The sidewalks were starting to bulge again with humanity as we walked back to the hotel, leading us to decide it was time to flee the crowds and the Cape and get ourselves back home. Our taxi driver, Mary Ann, was a skinny, leathery old hippie chick (or well disguised hippie dude, maybe?), who talked us up about life there during the winter and the now relentless throngs that deny her the leisure of an offseason. I've observed the same about Panama City Beach over the last thirty years--these spaces are rarely, or perhaps never, uncrowded.
After a couple uneventful hours in the air droning along in unforecast clouds and light rain, I flew an ILS into KELM and popped out of the weather a few hundred feet above the ground, and we were home.
Our travels have become something of a Corning appreciation course. This house, if you could find it at all, would cost 8-10 times as much in one of the tonier zip codes to the east. The town is progressive, but not annoyingly so. We have great restaurants, world-class museums, terrific schools and health care, and some of the most beautiful waterfront you'll ever find in the Finger Lakes. And Peg seems to feel at home in these hills, a reminder of her youth without the downside of being populated with actual Tennesseans.
So I reckon we'll abide here a while longer, enjoying the fact that as long as we have the Columbia we can drop into some amazing places and never wander more than a couple hours from home.
The sun's breaking out, and I need to get cleaned up and get cracking on something billable. Today the smoker/grill arrives, an expense that requires me to focus on earning a living for the next few days. But these days are a hell of a lot better than they were only a week or so before.
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