The subtitle of this post, written jointly by Lee & MeLinda, is:

43 {miles & years}

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We were already three weeks into our month-long road trip from Kansas to Maine and still hadn’t had any completely relaxing days where we laid by the pool or on the beach reading a book all day. We’re not complaining – we were on a 30-day vacation after all; we are just explaining that most of our days were full of activity.

As we drove toward Cape Cod on a Monday morning, Day 21 of our month-long road trip, we figured this might finally be the time to stop for a day and really chill out. We were both feeling tired and optimistic that the accommodations at the Platinum Pebble in West Harwich, Mass., would be the perfect place to take a day off.

Even as we said this plan out loud to each other and then to the operator of the bed & breakfast where we stayed, we knew it was going to be tough to pull off. We both like to explore all these new places we are visiting and there always seems to be another hike we want to do or a ballgame to see.

So did we manage to spend a day doing nothing?? Read on to find out…

Day 1 in Cape Cod (Day 21 of the trip):

The drive to Cape Cod from Providence, Rhode Island, was very short. We made a stop at a museum MeLinda had read about while researching the trip: the Heritage Museums & Gardens in Sandwich, Mass., just as you get to Cape Cod. We spent about three hours having lunch and walking the grounds, which included a windmill, many small gardens, big bug sculptures and a very cool antique car display.

From here, the drive over to where we were staying while in Cape Cod took about 45 minutes. (Everyone says to think of Cape Cod as an arm bent upward as if you are flexing your bicep. If you do that, consider that we drove in from the shoulder and were staying the elbow area.)

We arrived at the Platinum Pebble mid-afternoon and were given a tour of the property and our room by Simon, who owns the inn with his wife Annabelle. We decided to spend the rest of the afternoon at the inn’s gorgeous and quiet pool with magazines and books in hand. If you keep up with MeLinda on Facebook, you likely read about the pool incident that made this not a completely relaxing afternoon. We’ll share that story again for anyone not on Facebook:

An older couple was at the pool as well and we made small talk. The wife went into their room, which was just off the pool, to take a shower and the man continued doing a walking pattern in the shallow end. I got out to dry off and read poolside. Lee followed five minutes later. The man laid back in the water and made a noise like it hurt, which caused me to look up from my magazine. I was watching the man in the pool as Lee was arranging his towel and about to sit down on the lounger. The man rolled over and it looked like he was trying to lift his body up but couldn’t and then his head went underwater. Even though he was only in 3 feet of water, the man was struggling to lift his face out of the water and I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be able to lift himself. He started that scary face-down float that until now I’ve only seen in movies. I got Lee’s attention and he jumped back in the pool and lifted the man’s head up and got him to the edge of the pool while I yelled inside the main inn for Simon. Simon & Lee got him out of the pool and into a chair. Lee saved this man’s life! I tear up thinking about what would have happened if we hadn’t been out there and how great Lee always is in a crisis. He amazes me!

We left the pool and the Platinum Pebble in time to grab some dinner along with a special treat for dessert, the always challenging dipped cone. There truly isn’t a correct way to eat a dipped cone without a stream of vanilla goodness dripping down your hands and clothes. Luckily there were no cameras around when we shared this cold mess.

We then headed over to watch a Cape Cod baseball game and enjoyed the laid back atmosphere of what is considered the best amateur league in the country. It was basically the size of a high school field and they don’t charge admission. We were seeing one of the better teams in the league along with a team fighting for a spot in the playoffs. It was a big crowd and the weather was perfect. Several players were from the Midwest and one was from Missouri but didn’t respond when MeLinda yelled M-I-Z as he waited on deck. This led MeLinda to immediately determine he falsified his college status.

So this might look like a lot of activity but for us it was a pretty laid back day!

Day 2 in Cape Cod (Day 22 of the trip):

We planned to do a bike ride on the morning of our second day and then head to the beach for the rest of the day. After a quick breakfast we grabbed a few bikes from the B&B and started onto the Cape Cod Rail Trail. Our entry point was mile marker two in Harwich and the finish line was mile marker 22 in Wellfleet. Early in our #schummer road trip we had done a 30-mile bike trip, which took more than six hours due to a few bike malfunctions and both of us were drained after that adventure. We were optimistic we could do this one in four hours, including a stop for lunch. Ha!

We started off on the ride around 10 a.m. with two bottles of water and a full backpack (camera). The ride was on relatively smooth terrain with a few gradual hills. The temperature was in the mid 70s.

The first thing we realized is this trail could have been anywhere in the country since there were very few water views unless you stopped and went into each community. We continued to ride on encouraged by the constant reinforcement of mile markers on the road that showed your continued progress.

As the ride continued, the hills got a little harder and the bike traffic increased. You had to be careful you didn’t run over kids stopping on their bikes in the middle of the path. We kept thinking at the end of the trail there would be some great ocean view or at least something that would make this whole trip worthwhile. We were completely wrong and the only view was a parking lot. A good barometer of the scenery in photography stats: MeLinda took less than a dozen photos the entire route.

Dejected and hungry, we headed to Sam’s Deli about two miles back down the path to get some much needed food and drink. At this point we had gone about 23 miles and were starting to feel worn down. Even the power of a black and white cookie from the deli wouldn’t be enough to replenish us.

The ride back was hot (where did all the shade go that we remembered from the ride out?), with the wind in our faces (didn’t remember there being wind at our backs on the way out!) and almost all uphill (at least it seemed that way). It was a true test of our endurance. They always tell you to keep hydrated but it’s tough to remember to drink enough water until it’s too late. MeLinda’s legs started to cramp and on the way back we made several stops picking up bottled water anywhere it was available. We felt bad passing up a lemonade stand set up by two kids, though in Cape Cod I’m sure those kids were already multi-millionaires.

The mile markers worked the opposite on the way back, letting you know every .1 of a mile you still had a long way to go. Once we reached Brewster, just one city away from our B&B, we seemed to pick up the pace and saw the end was near. Though we still had to remember which turn off and our way back to the B&B on city streets. At that point MeLinda was so drained she trusted my directional skills to get us back. Luckily I picked the right turn and we pulled into our B&B around 3 p.m., five hours after we’d started.

Our plan for spending time at the beach was postponed because that pool was only a 50-foot walk from our cottage. In fact, we canceled dinner reservations so we could rest longer.

As we laid by the pool trying to rebuild the strength to eat, we did the math on our journey and that’s when we realized it was 43 miles … ironically, MeLinda would be turning 43 years old the next day. Lee has decided this will be the new standard for celebrating MeLinda’s birthdays; he is thinking a 44-mile float trip down the Amazon in 2015.

Day 3 in Cape Cod (Day 23 of the trip):

This was our last full day in Cape Cod (we needed to get up the next morning and start a long drive west) and there was still so much we hadn’t seen on our first visit here. We wanted to sightsee and we also wanted time at the beach, so we decided to combine them.

We started with a leisurely drive up Route 6 toward the tip of Cape Cod. Along the way we stopped at the National Seashore visitor’s center for some helpful tips: beaches that offer parking with our National Parks pass, when to see seals and where to see the lighthouse that’s on the bag of Cape Cod potato chips (made elsewhere in Cape Cod).

We had lunch harbor-side in Provincetown and MeLinda climbed the 116 steps and 60 ramps to the top of 252-foot high Pilgrim Monument (the pilgrims spent five weeks here before sailing on to Plymouth) for views of the town, water and dunes.

We then left the commercial craziness of this little tourist town and went to the beaches. First we walked about two miles to an area where we saw hundreds of seals sunning – so worth the hike through mostly soft sand! Then we went and sat at Race Point Beach, where we saw a few more seals swimming by.

The drive back down to Harwich had heavy traffic but we were entertained by a beautiful rainbow and a stop to enjoy dessert before dinner – it was MeLinda’s birthday so ice cream before dinner was acceptable!

We enjoyed seeing this part of the island but were glad that we had chosen to stay at an inn in a less hectic area of Cape Cod.

Overall, we’d say we succeeded in not cramming too much into our Cape Cod stay but we failed in taking a day off. Even when you try to rest sometimes it just doesn’t happen, but at least we enjoyed almost every minute of it.

 

 

 

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#Schummer14 – Lee & MeLinda Schnyder are turning their home in Wichita, Kan., over to a friend and taking a month-long road trip. They’ll travel from Kansas to Ontario and Quebec, Canada; then through Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The trip home will include stops in Ohio and Missouri. Beyond the blog, you can follow #Schummer14 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.