Daytripping to Nantucket island and Cape Cod Baseball - Thursday, July 16, 2009

Daytripping to Nantucket island and Cape Cod Baseball - Thursday, July 16, 2009

We woke up around 7:00 a.m. and drove to Hyannis for the high speed ferry to Nantucket. The ferry ride was uneventful as we were inside so really couldn't see anything on the way out of Hyannis nor into Nantucket. When we arrived in Nantucket, it was so beautiful. There are hundreds of little shops and boats. All types of boats (sailboats, yachts and regular boats). It's a very small and beautiful island. We were undecided about what to do and we thought of renting bikes, which is a very common thing to do there, but decided against it because we were afraid of the kids riding bike on the edge of the streets as there was lots of summer traffic.

We walked around and went through the shopping district. We even got to see the Whaling museum where we saw the history of whales, whale replicas, and the importance of whales to the area.  Then, we took a shuttle to Surfside beach. Alex read about this beach in the "500 things to do with your kids before they grow up," which has guided us on this trip.  They recommended this beach because of its beauty and also because it has a hamburger stand with awesome burgers. We arrived and immediately ordered lunch and then walked to the beach and had a picnic with our hamburgers, etc. It was beautiful. The summer has been extremely mild throughout the northeast. We've even had to take jackets and/or sweatshirts to some activities because of how cool it's been. This day was no exception. We were cold when we arrived in the morning and now at the beach with the wind, we were still very cold. We were too cold to go in the water, but my daughter wasn't as she was dying to go in. I changed her into her bathing suit and she went in the water. She had so much fun and was the brave one! 

We played Kadima or just sat and relaxed and enjoyed the moment. We left there and went back to the town as we thought we'd take a tour, but the tour guide did not want to take kids as it was really for adults.  However, he highly recommended for us to take the town shuttle to another town called Soskotchen via Poipus Road and we'd see most of the beautiful sites they see on the tour. He saved us about $100 and we thought it was great. We took the scenic shuttle over and took hundreds of photos of all the beauty. We got ice cream when we arrived, and walked around. We went through streets and streets of beautiful homes with roses growing on their facades. One of the houses had an outdoor dining table with beautiful candlescapes set up and it was located high on the hill overlooking the ocean.  It was straight out of a magazine. We saw some kids on a bridge over a road throwing water balloons at the cars as they went by. I hope my children don't ever do anything like that!

There is also something we've noticed while traveling through the Northeast:  beautiful and big dogs. We have seen many sheep dogs and other furry/large dogs that I can't remember the names of.  We went back to the town, shopped some more, walked around and took photos. We returned to Hyannis on the 7:00 p.m. ferry. When we were arriving in Hyannis, we noticed just beyond the parking lot that there was a baseball game going on.  This was another suggestion in the "500 things to do..." book. The author suggested seeing a Cape Cod league baseball game...and we did!

We caught it in the 6th inning. They have players from different universities playing together in this league who come from all over the country for the opportunity to play and spend a couple of months in Cape Cod. It was situated around a hilltop where we sat for most of the game.  The whole vibe was very pleasant and Americana.  It felt perfect in that it was the most typical and American thing to do.  We loved that we stumbled upon it and were able to experience.  As we look back, it is one of the top 5 experiences from this whole trip.  After the game, we drove back to Plymouth. We tried to go to sleep early, but it didn't work out. We were up until very late again.  By the way, we loved Hyannis and next time we'd like to stay there instead of Plymouth as it makes it easier with the ferries.