A Weekend in P-Town, June 2014

Remembering how much fun we all had at Suzi and Ken's wedding in P-Town, Sarah and Sean and Robert and I and the kids went down for a weekend this past season. The ocean was still too cold to swim, and the town wasn't yet in full tourist swing for the summer, but that was perfect for us. We had a fabulous time!

Friday night we took the 5:30 "fast" ferry from 200 Seaport Blvd. together. I stopped in Chinatown and brought Avana sushi, dumplings, and little cakes for dinner on the boat, and though Robert complained about our noisy seats, we had a great view and enjoyed the trip.

We took a cab from the dock to the hotel, and were happily surprised to be upgraded to neighboring suites--we each had two full rooms, one with a kind-sized bed and the other with a queen-sized sofa bed, with two TVs, two bathrooms, and a microwave and fridge. We sat by the outdoor fire pit for a little while and then called it a night around 9:30.

The next morning we were up early. It was very high tide, so the beach near the hotel was gone, but Marcus waded down to check it out anyway while we waited for the bus into town. We had breakfast at the Post Office Cafe (lobster eggs benedict, lobster omelet, good french toast for Marcus) and then walked down the street a little, just window shopping.

We took the 10:10 Long Point Shuttle boat from Flyer's dock on the East End of town over to Long Point beach. It was $15/person for the short 10-minute ride there and back, or you could have walked over the dunes for free. Some fishermen who had walked over the dunes in waders last summer said they were now sold on the boat shuttle, and took it all the time.

You could pretty much stay as long as you wanted, but since there aren't any facilities at all out there--no shelter, no shade, no bathrooms, no drinking water--we came back after just a couple hours. Still, it was lovely--really isolated and quiet and beautiful.

Sean pulled out his watercolor set and painted the lighthouse, and we dug in the sand and flew our tiny kite. The sand was very rocky and also very hot, so our walk up to the lighthouse (you could only go around it, anyway, not actually in or up it) was aborted, but we still had fun.

Marcus became an expert stone skipper. Samantha, not so much, but she did love tossing in her rocks and shells with a big "plop."

Above left, I'm waiting with Samantha on the beach for the return shuttle, and above right, Marcus with various lobster buoys back on MacMillan Pier. When the shuttle dropped us back in town, we got a foot-long hot dog and a lobster roll, and then some Brazilian food at the Aquarium food court down the street before finishing off lunch with a s'more sundae (excellent!), and then taking the bus back to our hotel for a relaxing afternoon at the pool.

For dinner we took the bus back into town and went to Local 186, which only takes reservations for parties of 6 or more. . . which, happily enough, we were. We had a beautiful outdoor table right on the corner of their patio. Marcus had butter-poached lobster sliders, Robert had a burger with seared foie gras on it, and we all had fun burgers as well. There were also excellent fries with various dipping sauces, fried Grillo's Pickles, and fried avocado strips, plus a grilled caesar salad. It was a great meal, and afterward we walked back along Commercial Street full and satisfied.

We bought salt water taffy in Marcus's favorite flavors (everything fruity) from the Shell Shop, and then we went back to the hotel, spent another short time at the fire pit, and curled up contentedly in bed.

On Sunday morning we misjudged the bus times and had our first wait of the trip, but the kids played on the beach while we waited, so it worked out all right. Breakfast was at Devon's, for an excellent quinoa/black bean/spinach bowl for me, with poached eggs, and Portuguese bread french toast for Marcus, and nice egg combos and pancakes as well. Then we took the 11:00 Art's Dune Tour out into the dunes.

The SUV had very low tire pressure and drove around on the sand past a number of historic shacks, including one where Eugene O'Neill and his family lived and one where Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire. Marcus got to run down a sand dune, and we saw deer tracks and learned about the history of the dunes and the shacks and Coast Guard rescue stations in the area.

Back in town, we went onto the main beach just to the east side of the pier and Sean found some hermit crabs for the kids to peer at in buckets. The sun was pretty brutal, though, so we cut the beach time short and went into Mojo's for lunch--fish tacos and burritos, fish and chips with really wonderful chips, fried fisherman's platter (Marcus devoured the scallops and Samantha the fish), and great fried onion chunks and mushrooms.

We took a break from the sun by ducking into the library, which, though it could have been a lot more air-conditioned, had nice bathrooms and a really lovely children's area on the second floor, with a half-scale model of a ship in there, and lots of wood puzzles and a foam slide and play area and computers. Sean found an old card catalogue full of recipe cards, and we all dozed and browsed a little before venturing back outside.

After a stop at the Purple Feather for a frozen lemonade with raspberry sorbetto, Robert took Marcus to the top of the Pilgrim Monument (the Pilgrims stopped here first, before deciding P-Town wasn't for them and sailing back up to Plymouth), and they took lots of pictures and bought medals for Sarah and Sean to commemorate a great weekend. I hear Sarah has plans of carrying hers around with her in her bag and working the conversation around to say "Whaddayou want, a medal?" before whisking out hers to show it off.

We bought more taffy and played on the lawn while they were climbing the tower, and we got to stand on a street corner and wave like lunatics up at the tower ("You can go up it, you know," advised a passing lady who probably was only marginally crazier than we looked) while Robert kept saying into the phone "Where are you? Are you in pink? Is Sarah waving? Are you holding a white thing?"

Robert took Samantha and ran back to the hotel in a taxi to pick up all of our bags, which we'd left at the front desk, and we made a final stop for malasadas from the Portuguese bakery, lobster rolls (the gilded lobster from Box Lunch and the cheapest lobster roll in Provincetown), sandwiches, and chocolate mousse cups to eat on the ferry. Getting home into Boston around 9:20, we walked to the Orange Line with two sleeping kids on us, after a nice weekend--friends, beaches, and seafood, right? Pretty great combination!

 

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Created: 6/9/14. Last Modified: 6/9/14.