CAPE COD: Bring your family for lunch

Day 269
​Brewster MA

Cape Cod has a lot to offer the day tourist. Plenty of restaurants, some craft stores, and a select few beaches that are open to the general public. Bring your family for a picnic. The local wildlife would love to see you.

The sand is amazing and the water has a beautiful aqua tint. A couple of very large beaches are open through the national park service for visitors to soak up some sun and get outside. Today is not one of those days. Cold weather sticks around for another day along the eastern seaboard. We take a brisk walk to the beach, take a look around, and head straight back to the Jeep.

Things are a bit clearer on the bay side of the cape. Strangely enough traveling across a few miles of land yields blue skies for us to look out over the water. Far out across the bay stands one of the many lighthouses that dot the coast. This one is a mile or so out along this rock reef. A sign at the sidewalk warns the non-natives like us that it's not a good idea to go out there unless you know how to read the tides. All that grass on the rocks isn't by accident. During high tide the path disapears under water and you can be stranded at the lighthouse until it drops back down. No thanks. We'll stick to looking and keep ourselves on dry land.

Beachfront on the cape is an expensive commodity. The further north we travel the more it becomes apparent that tourists are welcome, but only for a short time. There are restaurants and stores, but only a handful of hotels and campgrounds. You won't find any big chain places here. Locals have voted to keep them out and only one slipped through the cracks. The only chain we see is Dunkin Donuts. People around here love the place. Massachusetts has 1,150 locations . This is after all where the chain was founded. The town retains it's seaside charm by avoiding commercialization by anything other than it's beloved coffee. Residents definitely don't need the tax revenue either. A 282 square foot condo was the cheapest piece of property I could find. It was in the center of a village and did not look like anything special. List price: $329,000. The houses below in the picture were on the cape's shoreline and averaged 1,500 sq feet. List Price for these: $2.3 million. Yep, no need for chain store revenue at all.

Our route takes us past a few lighthouses and the dissapointment sets in. All of them except for one are privately owned and operated. That means admission fees of $15 or more. No thanks. We'll head to Nauset and see the only free one we can. This one was built in 1877 and has already been moved back 4 times from the eroding shoreline. It's little more than a time relic and only serves as an attraction. 

Our day on the Cape was not what we expected. Private parking for residents only was a common theme. Most of the beaches are "you're not allowed" and the prices to do anything are way outside the budget of a normal person. A cheapy motor inn room will set you back $200 a night and the really nice places will gladly take $800 to stay on the beach. We're poor and won't spend any money at their businesses. Instead we head home and take the dog out for his nightly walk. Less than a half mile in and Eli is really dragging his tail. An unusual pace for him after being in the house all day. We get home and I walk to the back of the RV to grab my chromebook. Sitting on his bed is the reason for his sluggishness. He thought it would be a good idea to eat almost a dozen glazed donuts while we were away. I walk up to him with the evidence and he knows he is in trouble. What a brat. That's the second time we have bought doughnuts in the last 10 months. We only ate 3. At least he didn't throw up in the house. Life could always be worse.