What We Did After Boston (Part II of the Summer Odyssey)

Defying the chilly weather, we meandered down to the middle of Cape Cod. Our first stop? A thin sliver of beach on the north shore of the peninsula. Too cold for actual beach stuff - but just right for taking in the striking scenery.



The diffuse light, the stark colors - it just felt like we were on a film set somewhere.





So what do you do when the weather makes the beach look like the set of some North European drama about struggling fishermen? Well, if you're me, you plan ahead, book a hotel with a totally awesome indoor wave pool (pro tip: it's the Cape Codder), and then sit back and watch the kids go wild while your intrepid spouse braves the so-called heated pool water!



Dinner at the Black Cat in Hyannis. Ok, time to get controversial. We had lobster roll after lobster roll on vacation, and this place? Hands down the best lobster rolls in all of New England. And some pretty decent chocolate ice cream, apparently:





Actually, the picky-eater brigade mostly subsisted on grilled cheese sandwiches, but we didn't hear any complaints.



The next day we ventured out into the wilderness - or at least into the local salt water marsh preserve. And when I say preserve, I mean really preserve. On the actual marshes we walked on a little raised wooden platform that was straight out of that Bradbury story, A Sound of Thunder. The view off that platform? This amazing sea of grass that is covered with each high tide and so ends up growing into these dune-like wave-like patterns:



It's completely extraordinary, and we took endless photos of it. When I'm feeling deep and serious, this landscape totally acquires a moody Terrence Malick quality. But also, I can't help thinking of Woody Allen's Love and Death - "The wheat! The wheat!"