Day 13 - Woods Hole, Falmouth

Julian slept for just over 3hours!  Steve had a good rest too - he has done a lot of driving the past few days.

After Julian woke up he was hungry and he refused an apple in preference for a banana!!

Anyway, we did head up to Falmouth to have a walk around.  First stop however was the drivethru Dunkin Donuts for afternoon tea - we didn't do the drivethru as we didn't know what to get.  In the end I went in and bought a jelly donut and glazed donut each.  I had to have a coffee with my donut, so I bought them also.

We then drove back to a park in the centre of Falmouth to eat them.

 Sorry to say the coffee wasn't too good.  The donuts were much better.  The jelly donut, would you believe, is much less sweet than the Aussie equivalent, jam donut.

This is the boys looking at the flags on the memorials to fallen soldiers from Cape Cod.

We then walked down the main drag to the fancy white houses which surround Falmouth Common.

As we have a long day tomorrow, we needed to stock up on supplies so we once again headed to the Stop and Shop, then it was back home to feed Julian.  Yesterday he refused most food and today he ate nearly 2 days worth!  Damn hard to plan when he is like this.  He has also started eating Blueberries again.

We didn't feel like eating in and the weather was cool but not raining, so we drove to Woods Hole for dinner.  Tonight we chose Captain Kidds which was an old style pub with pub food.  Steve chose the baked seafood and I chose the fried seafood.  They both were ok, nothing special.

 We chose a different road home and came past the Nobska Lighthouse (still in operation).

It is now 8:20pm and Julian went to bed without a fight, again.  We are just about to tuck into these icecreams:

Tomorrow we are heading up to the White Mountains in New Hampshire which is around 4hours driving.  We are going to break it up by stopping in Plymouth.

Day 13 - Woods Hole

We are starting to get used to the early starts - 6am today - but we are still tired from yesterday.  I am writing this whilst Steve and Julian have a midday nap :)

The weather was cloudy this morning but no rain thankfully, so we all walked down our street to try and find the beach.  These are some of the houses on our little street:

It was a little bit of a walk and we had to do a bit of bush bashing and asking the locals but we did get to a beach.  I just had a look at google maps and if we had turned left and not right, we would have saved ourselves a 2km walk!  Julian was very excited to see the water and wanted to drive straight in.  We managed to get his clothes off first!

 Steve said the water was cold to begin with but you got used to it.  Julian obviously doesn't feel the cold - it probably was around 18degC ambient and there was no wind.

This house was next to the beach where we were but they had a private beach - no Queen's chain here.

And a final nudie shot for you :)

Katrina and Greg in the distance.

Julian was also determined to walk home and he made a good go of it but we forced him back into the stroller when we got the road.  After our walk, it was time for Katrina and Greg to leave - they had a 6/7 hour drive to Montreal ahead of them. 

We all then had lunch at home and everyone has been having chill time/nap time since then. 

The sun is out now and we have blue skies once again, so we will be driving the 5km to Falmouth to walk around there once everyone is up.

***NOTE - I have added in some of Steve's photos into our Martha's Vineyard day.***

Day 12 - Woods Hole, Provincetown

Our bedroom has a couple of high windows which don't have curtains and we think this is why Julian is waking early. Thankfully today he played in his cot until 6:10am, so it was semi-bareable :)  It was already raining outside, as forecast, so we didn't hurry to get out of bed.

At breakfast Julian noticed Steve had a banana and wanted it.  This is not unusual, however this time instead of screwing his nose up in disgust when he tried to bite it, he ate some.  He ended up eating 1/2 the banana.  He has never liked banana, so maybe this is a turning point!  Not too much as we don't want to block him up again.

We were very pleased to have been to Martha's Vineyard yesterday which meant today we could do the drive up to Provincetown in the rain. First we stopped in Falmouth (5km up the road) Vistors Centre and asked what wet weather activities could be had in the area.  The lady suggested taking the scenic route to Chatham before heading up the highway to Provincetown.  We did as advised and there was nothing scenic about the drive, unless you consider abandoned motels and restaurants scenic - maybe "scenic" means something different over here?

Chatham was a nice little town and it has a lighthouse which we went to look at. Julian and I stayed in the car as it was REALLY windy and spitting with rain.  These are Steve's photos:

The Chatham Lighthouse

Looking out to the Atlantic ocean - it looks blurry because of the bad weather.

We only stayed in Chatham for lunch - Clam Chowder and sandwiches - before heading north up the main road to Provincetown.  Provincetown is the place where the Pilgrims first landed in mainland USA. They only stayed a month before moving onto Plymouth (just south of Boston).  It was a small town which reminded me a lot of Akaroa but the houses were all the same and the roads narrower.  There was no parking in town, so we drove up the rise to the Pilgrims monument.

 It is something like 100m tall.

 

This is looking down the stairwell 

Julian looking up at the monument.  It was so windy up there that he was getting blown backwards!  He thought it was great fun, most of the time.

We walked up the many stairs and there was a spectacular view when we got to the top.

 

Unfortunately because we took the "scenic" route, we didn't have much time to spend in Provincetown.  It looked very pretty and had many art galleries to explore.  It would have been magnificent in better weather.

So we drove back to Woods Hole to give Julian a late-ish dinner, which he wasn't interested in.  Katrina and Greg kindly went out in the rain to get Indian take-out for our dinner.  Julian had a spoonful of rice and butter chicken and then gave up eating for the night.

Tomorrow is meant to be nicer weather, so we are going to walk down our street to the beach in the morning with Katrina and Greg.  Then once they have left for Montreal, we will go to Falmouth for a proper look around.  Julian deserves a day out of carseats and strollers!

Day 11 - Woods Hole, Martha's Vineyard

We woke to a lovely day and we all had a wonderful sleep-in (to 7am, thank you Julian).  Because of the lovely day, I thought I should take some photos of the rental to give you an idea what a beautiful place this is.

 This is the view from the lounge of our rental.

This is from outside, looking at the lounge on the left and entry foyer on the right.

Katrina and Greg were coming later in the morning, so we did a bit of shopping at the local Stop and Shop to get ingredients to cook up some dinners for Julian, before they arrived.

When they arrived, we decided to head straight out to the ferry for Martha's Vineyard to make the most of the beautiful day.  Unfortunately whilst looking for somewhere to park, we missed the boat so we had lunch in Woods Hole.

Then we caught the 1:15pm ferry to Vineyard Haven which was a 45minute journey. 

Then we caught the bus to Edgartown

Lots of white weatherboard houses and trees dripping with green leaves.
 
Then it was another bus trip, this time to Oaks Bluffs. 

 

We had a walk around the town and then we caught the 6:15pm ferry home.  The wind had picked up and the temperture had plummeted - why did I wear shorts?

Katrina and Greg went out to get dinner whilst Steve and I put Julian to bed, so we had local pizza which was really good.

It is getting late and we are very tired, hence the short post.  Tomorrow the plan is to head up to Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod.  The weather forecast is for rain and thunderstorms...

Day 10 - Woods Hole, Newport

After Flo's, we went for a drive up Bellevue Avenue to look at all the fancy mansions - and there were many:

 This one is for sale (above)

There were so many and the styles were varied, something that these photos didn't capture.  I would have had better luck photographing fences and fancy gates such as this:

Anyhow, this was a worthwhile stop.  Even Steve was impressed (how could you not be?)  He forgot until after we left that Newport was where Australia beat the US (and our mate Dennis Connor) in the Americas Cup.

And then there was more driving - another 1.5hours to Wood Hole.  This wasn't too bad and we found our rental quite easily.  We met the owner and he gave us some recommendations for dinner and then he left us to it.

Tonight Julian had half of what Mr Heinz offered but surprisingly refused the blueberry yoghurt.  So we gave up and headed to Woods Hole, a very small township (10 or so shops and restaurants) about 2miles from our rental.  It is the launching point of the Martha's Vineyard ferry.

This is Woods Hole:

 Looking out towards Martha's Vineyard.

 The view from our restaurant balcony.

On our owners recommendation we went to Phusion.  He warned that it was expensive but the food was worth it.  We couldn't have summed it up better.  Steve and I had the same thing - Kobe beef burger with lobster tails and a Martha's Vineyard brewery Indian Pale Ale.  The burger was magnificent, easily the best thing we have eaten in the US - perfect in every way.  The beer was really good too.  We did need something to go right for us today.

However as we were enjoying the view too much, the market/shop next door closed and we needed milk for Julian.  So we went to Falmouth 5miles up the road to get it - another visit to a Rite Aid and bought a gallon of milk for $3.69.  We will go back as the houses there are perfect little dolls houses!

Tomorrow Katrina and Greg are arriving from Montreal.  I haven't seen them in 5 years and Steve saw them in February when he was over there.  They are staying with us until Sunday.  The weather is good for tomorrow but thunderstorms are predicted for Friday night/Saturday morning so we will play it by ear to see what we do.