Cape Cod, Mass. By Tom Stanley

Cape Cod holds a sort of mythical presence in my mind as the site of many family vacations when I was young. My grandparents routinely drove here during the summers for vacations, sometimes bringing my older sister and me along. We stayed once in a B&B run by a woman named Mrs. Hickey, who was very old back then and I wish her all the best today. Another time saw us, in addition to my lovely aunt Susie, join them for a stay at a really nice spa where I couldn't figure out the television and ended up watching a preview for WWF's Summerslam '93(?) over and over for a whole week.
Of course, this was my dad's favorite place to go as well, and he took us all the way to the tippy town of Provincetown, which is quite an eye-opener for even myself at the age of ten or eleven, let alone for my younger brother at the age of three or four. But I remember it with a very pleasant sheen, and thoroughly look forward to going back to see it from an older perspective.
This is not a bursting metropolis in any way, this peninsula-turned-island in the southeast portion on Massachusetts. But after fighting our way through sprawling New York, we might just want to dive into this beach-rich section of land even before we get to Boston. If I need to change the order on this page, I will. For now, this will do.
But we'll be trekking around and seeing as many towns, attractions and pieces of Massachusetts history as we can afford to. Here are some ideas.



-Quincy, Ma. (at right)

-Heritage Museums & Gardens

-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

-Provincetown, Ma.

-Whalewatching



-Pilgrim Monument & Provincetown Museum (at left)
 
-Plymouth Rock

-Art's Dune Tours

-Edward Gorey House

-JFK Hyannis Museum

-Nickerson State Park


(From top) Photo courtesy theculturalcoast.org; photo courtesy theculturalcoast.org; photo by no3rdw courtesy Flickr.com