Cape Cod, MA

Month - July
Destination - Cape Cod, MA
Travel Mode - Road

Duration - 5.5 - 8 hrs

When you have a baby you have to relearn how to live life. It's not like anything you've done before. I don't care if you're doing it in your teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, or 50s! Or beyond! This person comes first no matter what and you're in a constant learning curve with that. This vacation has been a perfect lesson in this concept.

Imagine this: the start to your existence is in October. With the exception of a few warm-for-October days, everything you know of the outside world is bracing cold and inside is either perfect or a little chilly and then quickly changed for your needs. Slowly it warms up, you're cool with this, so far my parents keep me comfortable. SUDDENLY it's hot as fuck and humid as fuck and no matter how much you whine or whimper or yell, no one seems to be able to adjust the temperature to your needs. WHAT THE EVER LIVING FUCK IS HAPPENING. We're pretty confident that this was a big part of Nio's experience this vacation.

The person we air bnb'd from had very strong feelings about the environment and we suspect this is why she didn't have A/C. Something we very definitely did not think to look for when booking and VERY definitely will think to look for in the future.

From the start this was an ambitious undertaking. With absolutely no traffic its a 4.5 hour drive but we all know better than to expect no traffic. We planned for pit stops along the way and the drive there wound up being difficult but manageable. It did get extended to 5.5 hours but we live to tell our story. Upon realizing that there was no A/C, we were highly optimistic and determined to not let this affect our vacation. The one respite was that there was a box fan in the apartment - situation was very similar to being on Survivor where the creators would leave a rudimentary object for the players to survive and display their creativity. We napped and hung out and of course made pork chops (our signature dinner). After smoking ourselves out of our living arrangements, we did wonder why do we continue to bring pork chops/steaks for our dinner. Anyway, it was delicious. While we are on this topic of eating we also did not choose our surroundings perfectly, while we had to take turns eating and holding Nio. There was a lot of stuff in the apartment, we couldn’t safely let him explore. BUT the apartment was beautiful and nicely furnished (Nio even found a prayer bell to play with), with many pieces of art work filling the walls and the location was really impressively beautiful. It was located in the very middle of town and yet highly secluded and surrounded by marshes which made it very unique. Being surrounded by so much greenery and natural beauty had a meditative feeling to it. 

Day 2: 4th of July - Intentions: beach and fireworks. Achieved: accidental feature in local parade, beach day, and Seafood mound. Ladies, gents, and esteemed non-binary audience members, we knew there would be a parade and had full understanding we would likely be stuck if we did not leave early enough. We had the best of intentions, but alas, life with a baby means rarely being on time. We did indeed leave after the parade had begun. There was a single means of egress and—you guessed it—it was the parade route. So when there was a break from the muscle cars and convertibles of yesteryear, we entered the parade route and drove along like our Honda CR-V was a classic vintage model. Madhu waved enthusiastically from the back seat window, nonchalantly wearing her baseball cap which says “Supreme Leader”—an immigrant in a sea of proud Americans. Jes drove and did what she could not to die of embarrassment. The crowd cheered us on exuberantly and we made it out alive.

Crashing July 4th Parade

We got to Marconi beach which was very beautiful and on a natural preserve land. There were good number of people already but we were unfazed, though Nio did get a little uncomfortable in the beginning and had to be calmed down by quickly attaching him to Jes’s boob in the protection of the tent (which we bought the second time). WE believe there were three factors to his discomfort at the beginning of the beach day . A) higher temperature than he was used to. B) More people than he was expecting. C) Bigger waves which were making more sounds than he was used to. After he settled we enjoyed our blackberries, Prosecco and lots of dunking in the ocean. We spent the entire morning there, then we got hungry for lunch and decided to check out Arnold's. Arnold's was just fantastic, specially for Madhu who devoured a 2 pound lobster and I saw a little halo at the end of it. 

This is how you do it

We had considered giving Nio his first taste of lobster but we realized that shell fish is a common allergen and we did not want to find out what the inside of the local hospital looked like, instead he had his sweet potatoes. After all this, we went back to the apartment and on the way we made mental notes of a few places we saw near our air bnb like a leather shop and the seafood market right next to the apartment. We took it easy the rest of the day. We had planned to see fireworks, however, we wound up feeling it would be a lot of work and little pay off. So we called it. (Side note, we tried to watch the Boston fireworks on TV but did not realize until pretty late that they don't start until the middle of the damn night, lol.)

Marconi Beach Day

Day 3: Intention: Hiking and Provincetown. Achieved: Hiking and kind of Provincetown. Today we were determined to hike and use the Deuter which we had spent 300$ on. We went to Mass Audobon which was again a gorgeous wildlife preserve. It had wooded area that we walked through as well as marshes and our path culminated at low tide on the bay. We had a great time, especially having Nio with us, he was really enjoying everything and very into it. At the end of it, he was knocked and we were pretty tired too so we headed back to the apartment and took a little breather. This was a real highlight of the trip as both of us really want to spend more time being active outdoors. 

Mass Audobon Hike

Nio knocked out at the end of our hike

After resting a bit, we headed over to Provincetown. Last time we were in P-town was three years back, when we were dating and FREE. This time, with Nio, it was probably more difficult to enjoy ourselves than ever before. Both of us were constantly worried that the crowd, noise and weather would affect Nio and make him uncomfortable and cranky. We tried to make the best of the situation and decided to grab dinner quickly and head back. Nio nursed in the restaurant and had a taste of French fries, which he happily went to town on.

Nio devouring fries at a P-town restaurant

Day 4: Intention: Do nothing. Achieved: visit to the Cape Cod Brewery and to the local leather shop. Much more relaxed, we slept in, rested well and went to check out the local brewery place. The leather shop that we visited was really cool, it is owned by a Native American resident and she makes all the goods herself. The prices are also very reasonable. Madhu ended up getting few things and we got Nio a drum to encourage him to find a beat that he loves.

Day 5: Intention: start early and get home. Achieved: long ass drive which was 8 hours long and beating ourselves up for making the decision to drive back on a Sunday over a long weekend. Deep sigh, writing about this actually brings up a lot of anxiety. The only reason we did not decide to stop somewhere and get a hotel room was that Nio slept for three and a half hours. We somehow, just barely keeping our sanity, made it back home. Never do this, never leave the day before work week starts on a long weekend. The following week, all of us definitely felt the exhaustion of this trip and it was probably two weeks later we started talking about needing another vacation. Ah well! what's life without challenges - a super boring movie that no one wants to pay to watch. Until our next travel adventure with a BABY!!!