Cape Cod

Well, we left Portland on Tuesday. Portland is a great city and is a place that would be perfect for us to live. It is large enough that there is plenty to do, close enough to many places for day trips and small enough that traffic is mostly irrelevant (although we were told the city doubles in the summer). The one negative is that the wife feels it is a bit cold - we got snow on Sunday

Anyways, the drive south to Cape Cod was mellow, 3 hours. We did turn around after 10 minutes when I realized that the camera battery was still plugged in back at the house. We decided to get breakfast before we left this time at our favorite place, 158 Pickett Street Cafe - outstanding bagels:

http://www.chowmaineguide.com/index.php?page=one-fifty-ate

Also getting high marks was Scratch Baking Company, great cookies:

http://www.scratchbakingco.com/

Back to the drive - the wife drove while I worked. She found that driving through Boston was a tad stressful. My fancy "air card" worked perfectly - my laptop was connected to the AT&T intranet the entire way. This was good since my boss needed something later that afternoon. Here are a few pics of the Boston skyline from the road





The house here in Barnstable is very nice with a great yard for the Hud to do sprints. Very quiet. The week has been fine - work has dominated, as things are crazy and the hours longer than I expect. I've been relieving stress by running on the Cape Cod Rail Trail

http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/southeast/ccrt.htm

While it is a 15-minute drive to the start, it is extremely worthy; 22-miles long through the woods and often along ponds and bogs. Tuesday the wife and I went after we unpacked the car and ran for 30-minutes. Wednesday I went myself a little late and it was very dark by the time I started..there were bunnies zipping all over the place trying to trip me...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcxKIJTb3Hg

...but a good 4-mile run. Thursday I went earlier in the afternoon and got on the trail in Brewster, a cool little town with tons of antique stores. A good 4.6-mile run.

Friday was another intense day at work...so I took a hot tub...and dropped my blackberry. It has yet to work since. Ooops!

In the late afternoon the wife and I went back to Brewster and browsed some outstanding shops and a superb General Store (http://www.brewsterstore.com/). One of my dreams is opening a General Store some day, and this was the 2nd best I've seen (next to Graham's in Glacier, WA)

Saturday we drove up to Provincetown, the very end of the Cape. We made several stops along the way, to see the several lighthouses and Coast Guard Beach, which is pictured below:





First lighthouse was Highland Light a.k.a. Cape Cod Light (http://www.capecodlighthouses.info/highland.html). Apparently it was recently moved back 400 feet to avoid falling into the ocean



Also in the area was an MITRE Radar Test Site. Here's a link for further details and a picture of it today (yes, a golf course right by the lighthouse):

http://www.radomes.org/museum/equip/MITRESouthTruroMA.html



Next lighthouse on our drive was Race Point Light (http://www.capecodlighthouses.info/racepoint.html). Unfortunately it was a bit of a hike (2-miles) across soft sand and it was a very windy day. This was the best pic we could get (as we passed on the hike)



Third up was Wood End Light (http://www.capecodlighthouses.info/woodend.html). Again, it was accessible only by a long hike across a stone path (once again we skipped the death march)



We then found, curious as to what it was, the Pilgrim Monument. I didn't realize that this is where the Pilgrims first landed. There was also a museum. I thought it looked pretty cool, gargoyles and all, but I guess it was a somewhat controversial design at the time







For $7 we could walk to the top. I'm somewhat scared of heights but all was good. Here is looking down the stairs. Made me think of the Bourne Identity



It was windy as heck up there (today we had 20-30mph winds all day), but after freaking out for a few minutes I managed to get over "it" and get some nice pics of Provincetown





We ran around Provincetown for awhile, a very cool place (to visit) with plenty of galleries in narrow streets full of history and home to a busy harbor





We got our fourth lighthouse, Long Point Lighthouse (http://www.capecodlighthouses.info/longpoint.html)



And they love their Halloween here in New England - the area has been decorated for weeks. I suppose it should be no surprise, being haunted and all...



We are here all week before heading up to the Homeland...