Kayaking on Bass River
Hiking at Wellfleet Bay Sanctuary
Parker works on one of his sand castles
The whole fam in Wellfleet
Mini-golf! 
Lots of wild turkeys around where we stayed. One morning, we looked out and saw these babies on top of our car!
West Dennis Beach
We are home from another incredible week on Cape Cod, which has got to be one of my favorite places on earth. Beautiful beaches, historic homes, and unlimited activities to choose from... what a place! This year, we were able to get into our rental on Friday afternoon, which was quite nice because it allowed us to unpack and do the grocery shopping then instead of losing our Saturday to settling in. So, without further ado, here's the recap of our week...
Saturday - the weather was actually a bit cool, low 70's and partly sunny. We cooked up a big breakfast and then went hiking in the Indian Conservation Lands in Dennis, which is a bunch of trails that curve around Bass River. Lots of good spots to watch fishermen and look for "crab parts", as we like to do. The boys were actually fairly cranky - they had colds the week before we left and hadn't slept well for a few nights - but Chad and I were chipper and had a good time. In the afternoon, we ventured to a little beach we knew from last summer, Grey's Beach. It's a little inlet in Yarmouth with really dramatic low and high tides... at low tide, you can walk in ankle-deep water out to the swim line ropes and pick up crabs and hermit crabs right out of the water, and at high tide, it's about 6 feet deep at the ropes with a very strong current. We just went for a couple hours, since the weather wasn't great, but we couldn't let our first day on the Cape pass without at least a brief visit to the beach!
Sunday - went to Sandy Neck Beach in Barnstable. Gorgeous beach, but because it's on the bay (northern) side of the Cape, the water was a bit chilly! It wasn't super hot that day, so we spent alot of time building sand castles and going for walks.
Monday - went to our very favorite beach on the Cape, West Dennis Beach. We love it because it's on the Nantucket Sound (southern) side of the Cape, so the water is pretty warm. There's a ton of parking, right next to the beach, so you aren't lugging your stuff all over. And there's tons of crabs, horseshoe crabs, hermit crabs if you go out a bit and snorkel around. It's a big long beach, so we always go for walks and look for shells and crab parts. It's the best beach for our "collection", which was all the crab claws, molted horseshoe crab shells, and shells that we found on the beach and in the water during our vacation. One other bonus of West Dennis is that it's right by our favorite Cape ice cream shop, so we always stop for ice cream on the way home. There's nothing better than being sandy and salty and tired and sitting outside with a big ice cream cone in your hand!
Tuesday - back to West Dennis Beach (and the Cape Cod Creamery) again! Very windy day, so the water was choppy. We still had a great time... as I told the boys, a not-great weather day at the beach is still better than a day about anywhere else!
Wednesday - went back to Grey's Beach... it's free, so if you just want to go to the beach for a couple hours, it's a nice place that you can just stop by for a bit. We caught so many crabs and hermit crabs and then dug a series of pools and tunnels to put them in, leading down to the ocean. It was kind of an amusement park for the crabs, if you will. Before we had to get them back in the open water before they cooked in those little pools. Had our picnic lunch there and then went to play mini-golf, which Brandon loves. After stopping back at the house to shower and change, we went into Hyannis, which has a very charming downtown strip, creatively called, Main Street. We parked there and walked around for the rest of the afternoon and evening, stopping for pizza for dinner.
Thursday - went kayaking on Bass River! We've never taken the boys kayaking, even though it's one of the activities that Chad and I really love. So fun. In the afternoon, we drove out to Wellfleet to the Wellfleet Bay Sanctuary there, run by Mass Audubon. Very cool place with an awesome nature center and lots of trails, including one that leads you right to the edge of the bay and passes huge colonies of fiddler crabs. We loved it there!
Friday - our last night, boo-hoo. We tried out a new beach, Corporation Beach in Dennis. We really liked it there - very kid friendly beach area, tons of families, really pretty, too. The only downside is that it's on the Bay side, so the water was cold. But, we declared it our second favorite beach on the Cape.
Saturday, the boys woke us up at 5:45am (unfortunately, pretty typical for the week!), so we were out of our rental house and on the road by 7am! We had an amazing week. I loved having all that time with Chad and the boys without feeling the pull of the computer or the TV or cleaning (although, there is no dishwasher there, so I did spend a fair amount of time doing dishes). And since spending the day at the beach is probably by favorite thing in the world... well, let's just say that I'm a happy girl after a whole week on the Cape.
Saturday - the weather was actually a bit cool, low 70's and partly sunny. We cooked up a big breakfast and then went hiking in the Indian Conservation Lands in Dennis, which is a bunch of trails that curve around Bass River. Lots of good spots to watch fishermen and look for "crab parts", as we like to do. The boys were actually fairly cranky - they had colds the week before we left and hadn't slept well for a few nights - but Chad and I were chipper and had a good time. In the afternoon, we ventured to a little beach we knew from last summer, Grey's Beach. It's a little inlet in Yarmouth with really dramatic low and high tides... at low tide, you can walk in ankle-deep water out to the swim line ropes and pick up crabs and hermit crabs right out of the water, and at high tide, it's about 6 feet deep at the ropes with a very strong current. We just went for a couple hours, since the weather wasn't great, but we couldn't let our first day on the Cape pass without at least a brief visit to the beach!
Sunday - went to Sandy Neck Beach in Barnstable. Gorgeous beach, but because it's on the bay (northern) side of the Cape, the water was a bit chilly! It wasn't super hot that day, so we spent alot of time building sand castles and going for walks.
Monday - went to our very favorite beach on the Cape, West Dennis Beach. We love it because it's on the Nantucket Sound (southern) side of the Cape, so the water is pretty warm. There's a ton of parking, right next to the beach, so you aren't lugging your stuff all over. And there's tons of crabs, horseshoe crabs, hermit crabs if you go out a bit and snorkel around. It's a big long beach, so we always go for walks and look for shells and crab parts. It's the best beach for our "collection", which was all the crab claws, molted horseshoe crab shells, and shells that we found on the beach and in the water during our vacation. One other bonus of West Dennis is that it's right by our favorite Cape ice cream shop, so we always stop for ice cream on the way home. There's nothing better than being sandy and salty and tired and sitting outside with a big ice cream cone in your hand!
Tuesday - back to West Dennis Beach (and the Cape Cod Creamery) again! Very windy day, so the water was choppy. We still had a great time... as I told the boys, a not-great weather day at the beach is still better than a day about anywhere else!
Wednesday - went back to Grey's Beach... it's free, so if you just want to go to the beach for a couple hours, it's a nice place that you can just stop by for a bit. We caught so many crabs and hermit crabs and then dug a series of pools and tunnels to put them in, leading down to the ocean. It was kind of an amusement park for the crabs, if you will. Before we had to get them back in the open water before they cooked in those little pools. Had our picnic lunch there and then went to play mini-golf, which Brandon loves. After stopping back at the house to shower and change, we went into Hyannis, which has a very charming downtown strip, creatively called, Main Street. We parked there and walked around for the rest of the afternoon and evening, stopping for pizza for dinner.
Thursday - went kayaking on Bass River! We've never taken the boys kayaking, even though it's one of the activities that Chad and I really love. So fun. In the afternoon, we drove out to Wellfleet to the Wellfleet Bay Sanctuary there, run by Mass Audubon. Very cool place with an awesome nature center and lots of trails, including one that leads you right to the edge of the bay and passes huge colonies of fiddler crabs. We loved it there!
Friday - our last night, boo-hoo. We tried out a new beach, Corporation Beach in Dennis. We really liked it there - very kid friendly beach area, tons of families, really pretty, too. The only downside is that it's on the Bay side, so the water was cold. But, we declared it our second favorite beach on the Cape.
Saturday, the boys woke us up at 5:45am (unfortunately, pretty typical for the week!), so we were out of our rental house and on the road by 7am! We had an amazing week. I loved having all that time with Chad and the boys without feeling the pull of the computer or the TV or cleaning (although, there is no dishwasher there, so I did spend a fair amount of time doing dishes). And since spending the day at the beach is probably by favorite thing in the world... well, let's just say that I'm a happy girl after a whole week on the Cape.
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