Cape Cod Vacation

by Ethan Cole
 
 

A Cape Cod vacation is one thing, but a Cape Cod vacation is another thing, a better thing, when done the way many students, artists, and others do it: they spend a summer living and working in the most beautiful and inspiring (and wild!) of areas. This is what I did with two friends, one from the west coast, in the mid seventies, and I have it down as one of the best summers I ever experienced.

We rented rooms from a fisherman and his wife in P-town (Provincetown). We worked odd jobs during the day, doing chambermaid work, framing in the galleries, etc., and partying all night long! Come on. This is what you do when you are meant to go to Paris as a young man (as Hemingway would have it) or woman but instead must stay closer to home and need to save money for that upcoming first semester of college. That is, you hang out with the peeps who live in town (and I recommend this for any vacation, not just a Cape Cod vacation). That way, you get to do non-touristy things like let an amount of air out of the dune buggy or jeep tires and go dune-hopping or hang out in the pools which are between the beach and the bars.
 

Conversely, if you want to have a small sense of a Cape Cod vacation as a tourist would experience it, you "play tourist" and go to the art shows, the marine surplus and other schlock shops, and eat all the fudge, cotton candy, candy apples, and cashew butter & banana sandwiches you want.

The residents of P-town (which is surrounded by water on three sides) are friendly, laid back, and hella bright and creative. They also make their living on the tourism. They work through the frigid winters, then sell their artwork in the summer. So BUY something - please!

Then, take off with a local to the neighboring towns, the ones you had to pass through, most likely, on your way into P-town (unless you took the illustrious Cape Cod vacation route, via air on a little, teeny plane that brought you right into the Provincetown airport). Explore Hyannis, Woods Hole, and the mouths: Falmouth and Plymouth (though the latter is not really part of Cape Cod, just in Massachusetts and close by, for those who want to include the real geography of the "founding" of this nation on their Cape Cod vacation).

Then, since you are there on your however brief Cape Cod vacation, you must take a ferry to the vineyard, Martha’s Vineyard, and stop over in Nantucket, as well. The homes and other buildings are quaint historical throwbacks to the first colonists, the land is varied and inviting, and the towns have a vivid history that includes the hoity toity such as the Kennedys.

So, whether you "play tourist", "play celeb" (if you don’t get overshadowed by the actual celebrities who appear all the time on the Cape), "or play gay" (for P-town is predominantly gay and lesbian populated)...you will have a unique time of it on your Cape Cod vacation.