[although for the record I did finish tonight. Technically past midnight though, so I did back it up a little bit so that it would show as Wednesday and not Thursday. But otherwise, I’m good].
We woke up this morning in Warwick RI in our Holiday Inn
Express. We met Betty for another
continental breakfast. The kids pigged
out this morning! Well, they do most
morning, we love breakfast in this household.
Pancakes, bagels, bananas, yogurts, all sorts of tempting goodies. We enjoyed spending some more time visiting
with Betty before we had to split ways.
She has an early flight tomorrow morning, so there’s things to do at
home to get ready for that, and we had an exciting day on the Cape awaiting
us.
We drove to the bottom right of the Cape Cod boot – Chatham. It was about two hours from our hotel, but it
was actually really nice. We haven’t had
much driving to do for the last couple of days, so it was good for the kids to
be still and have to relax. We headed
for Lighthouse Beach in Chatham. I had
heard it was a great public beach with a lighthouse and seal sightings,
perfect! Chatham is a crazy town
though! Very busy and almost no public
parking. The lot by the public beach is
a 30minute only lot, for real?! So we
parked and walked for a few minutes. It
was an indeed a gorgeous beach. Flat and
sandy, more like then NC Outer Banks then I was expecting. There were sandbars and small tidal pools and
just amazing views. The water was icy
cold and the sand was a little hot [Ryan asked me to be sure I mentioned that
the sand was hot. I didn’t think it was
hot, but what do I know]. We were sad to
leave after 30minutes, but still optimistic that we would find other parking
and return. That never happened! We drove and drove and drove and finally
googled picnic areas in Chatham as it was after 1:00. After some very private and residential roads,
and even a dead end into someone’s driveway, the maps app finally got us to
Chase Park :) We parked and unloaded our
picnic box and supplies at a table. I
pulled out the loaf of bread, that hadn’t even expired yet, and it was covered
in mold. I guess it got too hot. And then it started to rain. Chatham was not off to a good start; I was
almost to the point of just having to laugh about it. We sat in the car and ate raisins, and hotel
breakfast bar apples, and granola bars, and other junk food while waiting out
the rain. Fortunately it didn’t rain
hard or long, and the day took a happy turn after that. Behind us on the other side of this tiny park
in the middle of nowhere, there was a windmill.
We walked up to, because, hey why not?
Come to find out it’s a grist mill that began operation in 1797. Now it’s a historic site that happened to be
open to the public today. It was really
interesting and I’m glad we stumbled upon it.
There were some very knowledgeable gentlemen offering facts and
information about it, and we were able to walk inside and then up the stairs to
the second level. We had quite a lot of
fun learning about the wind and how the corn went in and how everything turned
to grind it into cornmeal. The people
who built this thing over 200 years ago were super smart! Behind the gristmill was a labyrinth. The kids loved it. It’s a stone path that winds and weaves all
around itself so you walk a really long way in a really small space. Like a maze almost, but only one way to
go. The kids were completely enthralled
with it, and we were able to sit on a bench and just watch them walk it over
and over. Well, Ryan at least. He of course followed the path; the girls
just kinda ran. I think we need a
labyrinth in our backyard.
So I had thought I was going into today with relatively low
expectations. I just wanted to see the
seals, anything after that would be bonus.
Fortunately my awesome hubby came to the rescue, as he usually
does! He found a fishing pier. And not only that, he found a public parking
spot! It was an awesome, stinky, cool,
gross, everything all at once type of experience. Just like Deadliest Catch, only not
really. There were fishing boats
everywhere, and we saw them dumping the dead, nasty, bloody fish off the boats
into huge buckets and baskets. Of all
the things we did today, Abby said watching them unload the dead fish was her
favorite!?? And do you know what dead
fish bring?? Seals!! And seagulls too. Lots and lots of seagulls. But I got to see my seals. They weren’t basking on rocks on a beautiful
beach like I had pictured, but they were still seals and there were dozens of
them in the water right along the docks and circling the boats. They were so cute! I loved when they got playful and would swim
on their backs or in spirals. Thanks
Dear for saving the day and finding some seals!!
We left Chatham about 3:00, and we had a couple extra hours
[we had researched lots of ideas, but no set plans until 6:00]. We decided to check out the Cape Cod Canal. We had passed it on the way out to Chatham,
and it looked pretty fun. So we headed
back and hopped on the bike path/ service road that follows the canal. Think the greenway but with amazing New
England views. I’m pretty sure I read
somewhere that it’s seven miles one way, so fourteen out and back. And there’s one on each side of the
canal. Ryan asked if he could ride bikes
on it with Grandpa someday! No bikes
today, but we do have scooters in the trunk, so off we went. We watched boats and birds and even a
train. We walked to where the path goes
under the highway bridge – one of those huge bridges you see up here in the
North, the kind we don’t have in Georgia.
It was fun to look straight up under the bridge, and it was good to give
the kids a goal. They had their moments
on the path, and Chloe ended up riding on my back the second half of the
trip. But we made it about two
miles. Coleson and I enjoyed it, and I’m
pretty sure they did too in their own ways :)
From there we crossed the canal on the Bourne Bridge – we crossed
on this bridge three times today. It’s a
great bridge and there’s a cool train bridge just down the river that you can
see. Another fun thing that kept coming
up in my things-to-do-in-New-England searches was the Cape Cod baseball league,
so we took in the Bourne Braves game tonight.
It’s a small, amateur league, mostly college kids that play in the
summer. It’s super casual and laid
back. The games are free, although we
did make a small donation. And even the
concessions are affordable. We ate
dinner for $22! And it was good food,
they literally took the burgers off the grill and put them in buns for us as we
ordered them. You don’t get that at
Turner Field! The game started as a
pitching matchup, scoreless for four or five innings. When we left in the 8th, Bourne was
up 5-4 though. There were no UGA kids on
either team, but there were several GT guys.
And in the starting lineups, we heard three Ryans. Chloe picked up on this too and when they
would announce the Ryans as they came up to hit, she’d get excited: “another
Ryan, another Ryan!!’ A not-so-exciting
event from the game tonight is that Chloe chipped her front top tooth :( There were concrete ledges that we were
sitting on, none of them very high, and she and Abby were walking along them. Chloe sat down to slide off the ledge, no
more then maybe two feet high, and she slipped a little. She bit her tongue and for awhile I thought
that was all. She stopped crying pretty
quickly and continued the rest of the night just fine. But when I was bushing her teeth, she got all
upset saying that it hurt and that’s when we saw the chip in the tooth. Hopefully the tooth itself will be okay, but
I guess I’ll be calling the dentist in the morning to see if we need an appt
for next week. Poor baby!!
After the game, we drove about thirty or forty minutes to
return to the same hotel. It’s been nice
staying two consecutive nights most every place and not having to pack up each
morning. And we’re closer to Rick and
Cheryl’s for tomorrow morning. It rained
on us most of the car ride back tonight, but we’ve been blessed with good
weather during the days. A free carwash
without interrupting any of our plans, perfect!
Ryan blogged on my phone on the drive back while the girls both
slept. It’s a little weird that my seven
year old uses my phone to blog while we drive, but I guess that’s the way of
the world these days! Just last summer,
he was journaling our trips with pencil and paper. I loved seeing the drawings he would do,
especially of the Erie Canal Locks. But
I also love that he blogs and that the blogs can be shared and saved and
printed into blog books someday.
Alrighty, I think that sums up our fun day on Cape Cod. Between all that and a run on the treadmill and
now blogging, I’m ready for bed!!
Weekapaug tomorrow! This trip is
going too fast! I can’t believe we only
have two real days left before we start travelling south. So grateful for the good times and the
memories we’re making!
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