“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky.”---John Masefield
Back in the 1950s, the Cunard Line began tell us “Getting there is half the fun.” Maybe, but that was then and this is now. The airline industry, in particular, has injected so many sharp objects into that balloon that it now resembles a chubby porcupine. Flights these days are invariably overbooked, connection times are tighter than ever, cancellations are not uncommon and please, don’t ask us to stow your bag in our shrinking overhead bins. The seats don’t lean back quite so far, which is good, but only because they are now so close together that noses would be broken in the process. Oh, and if you’d like a bite to eat, we have stale potato skins, fricasseed grasshoppers and jellied moose nose, would you like a refill?
If you are ever given a choice between having your eyes gouged out with a rusty claw hammer or taking JetBlue’s 7:30 a.m. flight from Orlando to Provincetown via Boston, take the hammer. That way, you’ll avoid getting up before dawn, arriving at the airport at 5:30 and waiting all morning for the plane to show up, thus missing your connector at Logan in Beantown. The missing flight originates in Puerto Rico, which is very forgiving of tardy departures. “It’s almost ALWAYS late,” a security man at MCO advised me. “Nobody seems to give a twiddle.”
It’s become commonplace these days to ask passengers to forfeit even their smallish bags to the cargo hold. “We have a full flight,” the broadcasted Voice of Doom will warn you, “the overhead bins will not hold everyone’s luggage.” Pay no attention. Unless you are one of the last to load, there will be room on all but the tiniest of planes. Of course, you could be one of the last to load if you have not coughed up extra cash to reside in Zones A, B or C instead of the cheapskate Zones X, Y or Z. If you are denizens of the latter group, passengers roaming through the cabin on their way to the bathroom are encouraged to snarl and throw lighted matches at you. Maybe next time you’ll wise up.
Sometimes, smaller is better. In Boston, you’ll switch to the jaunty mini-planes of Cape Air, neatly tucked in a row by the gate like some child’s toy collection, waiting to leap off to Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Hyannis or some other tinytown serviced by noone. You’ll be designated to one of eight or so seats by an ex-carnival professional adept at guessing your weight. One of these seats is right next to the pilot, so study up on your landing skills in case she strokes out on the way to P-town. No worries, though. It’s only a 25-minute flight, so there’s a good chance you’ll make it. And even if the plane goes down, there are fishing boats all over the place.
In the good old days, Cape Air used to have $50 flights from Boston to various Cape Cod ports of call, but now they’re five times that much. Since their recent hookup with JetBlue, however, you can now travel there roundtrip from Florida for as little as $500. There are also several Boston-Provincetown ferries daily at reasonable prices. These are extremely popular and should be booked several days in advance lest you be trampled by marathon bikers, Ivy League fratboys off on a lark or the Summer Road Trip of the Daughters of Bilitis. Once in Provincetown, a traveler can walk or bike just about anywhere. Cars are often an inconvenience and parking spaces are expensive if you’re lucky enough to find one. It’s a paltry $6.50 taxi ride into town from the P-town airport. If you’re wise enough to stay at the Secret Garden Inn like we did, co-owner David will even pick you up at the plane. He might even bring you a cookie.
I Never Promised You A Rose Garden
There is no place else remotely like Provincetown, which sits at the very tip of Massachusetts’ Cape Cod and escapes being a true island only by the snippet of Route 6 entering from the south. Despite what you think, the Mayflower first landed at P-town before moving on to Plymouth five weeks later, so you can skip that visit to the caged rock. The town has 3,000 permanent residents but 60,000 tourists show up every summer, inundating the shops and restaurants, filling up the tour boats and wandering dazedly through the streets completely oblivious to vehicular traffic. Many of them are gay, Provincetown being the gayest community in the U.S. per capita for many decades, and no, Key West isn’t even close. Diversity? Diversity, thy name is Provincetown.
Virtually all the buildings in Provincetown are ancient but in superb condition. Most of the businesses are locally owned and the few chain store franchises must cozy themselves in unrecognizable housing. There are no golden arches and few actual hotels. The B&Bs are the bedrooms of the tourist hordes, most of them located near the center of town. Virtually everyone domiciled in town walks or bicycles everywhere. There are numerous pedicabs for the lame and halt, many propelled by Eastern Europeans who know little English but the name of every restaurant on Commercial Street.
Our Bed & Breakfast, the Secret Garden Inn, is owned by Chip and David, who visited from Kansas City four years ago, then bought and restored a fixer-upper. The location is primo, a few steps to the main drag, a few more to the pier from which all ships disperse and almost right next door to the essential Coffee Pot Restaurant, open from 5:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. Despite its moniker, the place sells everything from scones to shrimp to salsa and everybody in town stops in sooner or later, so don’t think you can avoid it.
The Secret Garden Inn has 7 rooms, none gigantic. Ours was the called The Room At The End Of The Hall and you’ll never guess where it was located. The RATEOTH was the largest in the house, roomy enough and spic-and-span. Breakfast at the SGI started at 8 a.m., a little late for us, but there were always a few home-made muffins still lying around whenever we made our way back to the place. There was a nicely landscaped fenced yard around the inn which contained a cheery gazebo, chairs and tables. Co-owner David was always available to assist and advise. People need to know, after all, where the best lobster rolls are made and what time the ferry leaves. Despite our proximity to the streets, the Secret Garden Inn was surprisingly quiet at night. All things considered, we’d give it a 9; it had a good melody and a beat you could dance to.
Cruisin’
“Yo-ho, yo-ho, it’s off to the sinister ocean we go/We’re a peglegged bunch but we’re tough and we’re nervy/And we hope to come back without getting scurvy.”---Captain Blackbeard Killeen
In spite of the woeful delays caused by our Puerto Rican airline, we made it down to the docks in plenty of time to meet my sisters, Alice and Kathy (and the latter’s husband, John Scanlon) for our six o’clock sunset cruise. Alice flew into Boston from her home near L.A. a few days earlier and was staying at Kathy’s digs in Salem, N.H. It was the first time all of us had been together since the notorious Ellison/Killeen Las Vegas nuptials in 2016. Alice and I didn’t get along well as kiddies growing up but we are extremely compatible when we only see each other every three years. Go figure.
The flier said, “Join Captain Bob Burns and the crew of the Bay Lady II for a memorable sail across Provincetown Harbor and into Cape Cod,” so who were we to argue? Siobhan and I have been on these twilight cruises before, notably one in Seattle which provided scrumptious Mai-Tais and a clever narration throughout the trip, but never a cruise on a sailboat. Fortunately for all involved, this sailboat had a nice big engine, since there wasn’t much of a breeze. The hardworking crew rigged the mainsail like the jolly tars they were, however, just to keep with the spirit of the day, and we were off.
“When do they bring the Mai-Tais?” asked Alice. “Where is the clever narration?” wondered Kathy. “Did anybody remember the Dramamine?” queried Bill. “What do you want for forty dollars?” said Captain Bob. If the Bay Lady II was short on amenities, however, she scheduled up a beautiful night with warm temperatures, a slight breeze and a chamber of commerce sunset. The Captain did point out a few important spots in the harbor, idling for a few moments in the area where the Pilgrims laid anchor to lord it over those impostors from Plymouth. It gave the five of us ample opportunity to shoot the breeze, as it were, after three years apart, and to marvel at the glorious weather New England was providing for the balance of our visit. There may be more comfortable places to spend your time for the balance of the year but Summer belongs to Massachusetts and its five smiling accomplices. Or me name isn’t Calico Jack.
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| (1) John & Kathy Scanlon, Alice Killeen Richards and a hitchhiker they picked up along the way; (2) Jolly tars friggin' with the riggin'; (3) Cleopatra surveys her realm from the barge; (4) Girls just wanna have fun. |
Next Week:
It’s off we go, a-whaling, a-whaling. And inspecting the innards of Provincetown via the boisterous street scene, gay motorcades, streetside fortune tellers and more. Did you realize that Liberace and Peggy Lee are still alive and reuning in Provincetown? Neither did they.
That's all folks....
