Cape Cod 2026

Before I left for my trip, I watered the garden well to withstand two days of 90°+  weather.

The newer deep purple iris I liberated from a roadside ditch.

 We certainly filled our four days on the cape with fun and activity. The weather was more like summer the first two days. My car thermometer hit 97° F on the drive down, but dropped into the 70°'s once I hit the coast.

Driving up to the Bourne Bridge - we were meeting at the Canal Trail bike path on the other side for our first adventure. 

The drive to the Cape was a little over three hours and I saw AJ's car somewhere on the Mass Pike.

We couldn't check in to our rental until 4pm, so we started off with a 16 mile bike ride on the Cape Cod Canal Trail. 

We parked by the elevated railroad bridge seen here in the distance under the Bourne Bridge. It was a great ride, but everyone we passed kept commenting on the difficulty of the return trip due to the wind.  

We rode off towards the Cape Cod Bay and had a wonderful easy ride - the wind was at our backs! We stopped at the Canal Discovery Center and got a nice overview of the history of the canal and the elevated rail bridge - the longest in the world when it was built in the 1930's. When a train needs to cross the canal, the raised rail bed gets dropped down, the train crosses, then is elevated again.

The return trip started off easy, but soon the wind added a nice resistance force which exhausted us all and enhanced our workout. We made it though, packed up our bikes, and drove another 45 minutes to our rental. I've stayed in the same house for the third year now and it is ideal in my opinion. It sits in a quiet neighborhood, with a narrow view of the bay a few hundred feet away, and is packed with history. The house was built in the mid 1700's and has been added on to and updated many times through the years. We each get our own room which is key for this stage in life.

We walked to dinner a Cobie's right down the road - lobster rolls! It was just approaching sunset as we walked back, so we enjoyed a fantastic sunset at the beach.

Serene sunset scene.

We decided to have a day in Provincetown next, as it would be the warmest and sunniest day. Amyjean guided us to the Causeway for a little hike and beach walking.

Our objective was to cross the Provincetown Causeway which stretches 1.5 miles across the bay to a beach and that little lighthouse in the distance.

The beach end was covered in poison ivy, so we had to tread carefully. We walked about 5 miles total and we were tired!

We stopped on the causeway for a rest on the way back. 

We had another meal after we walked the streets of artsy Provincetown and I topped my meal with a frozen cappuccino. 

An old time general store was full of antiques and penny candy, along with all sorts of other wares.

For our third day, we decided on a 16 mile bike ride to Harwich, and lunch at The Seal. I had a decent fish and chips, but the chips were pretty bad - just as well. They had a new chef and he was learning to cook, I imagine! After relaxing for a bit at the house, we decided we weren't all that interested in a whole dinner, so it was ice cream for dinner at a homemade ice cream shop. I chose a 2 scoop dish with ginger ice cream and also key lime pie ice cream. Yum.

The chilliest day but just fine for a bike ride through cranberry bogs and past kettle ponds left from the glaciers 20,000 years ago.

Friday we just had a leisurely breakfast, a beach stroll, then packed up and headed home. It was a most relaxing and fun time. 

It's Saturday now and I have most of the day to spend in the garden. Tomorrow will be a rainout so I'll unpack and putter around the house then. After mowing the back lawn, I got to digging, tidying up and transplanting. It turns out I have many cranesbill growing wild and mostly unnoticed in the lawn. I looked it up and it's a native which loves to grow in woodland borders, so I've been transplanting ones I find in the lawn into my woodland border. I love free plants

Cranesbill aka wild geranium. I planted this one last fall and it seems to like its new spot under the crabapple tree. Several more went under the spruce trees today.

My life is not without distresses. For the third time in a year, my neighbor has taken their riding lawn mower, with its blade way too low, for a wide pass over a section of my lawn, scalping it nearly to the dirt. He just made a random loop in order to turn his mower around? Anyway he blew grass all over my driveway and the street. When he was out there to blow it off, I went and kindly asked him to not mow my lawn as it's too short and burns the grass. He apologized in broken English and I responded very kindly. I don't want a bad relationship with my neighbor, but if that happens again, I will go ballistic. I have been planting a series of shrubs to better define the property line, (and block lawn mowers) but apparently not fast enough. My mission is now clear to purchase and plant several lilac and nine bark shrubs along the property line next week. Fences really do make good neighbors.

I realized I have book club Tuesday and haven't yet read the book Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout. I've got a lot of reading to do on rainy Sunday. It will keep my mind from worrying about my upcoming surgery. It should go as simply as it did in December, but I always worry when I'm being intubated. 

Looking ahead, I don't have much planned which I'm fine with. I'm looking forward to enjoying and improving my home and garden over the summer. The little projects are endless, but they can be creative and rewarding when they turn out well.