Cape Cod - God Bless America

4th July Parade - Sandwich
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Next stop was Sandwich in Cape Cod, which turned out to be a sleepy little town with a nice pond and watermill, one pub and two restaurants. Being bank holiday weekend, we had shelled out a fortune for a B&B, which turned out to be another lovely old converted house, once belonging to one Isaiah Jones. Our room included a nice spa bath and every imaginable free toiletry, plus complimentary port and sherry in the guest sitting room. Our hosts on this occasion were Donny and Catherine. Donny was a bit of a character and, we discovered on our last day, a former musician who had "played with Sinatra... but I don't like to talk about it", before getting the photo album out. His wife was altogether more laid back and another good cook. On the morning of July 4, we headed down for breakfast and Donnie was in fine form, presenting each course of our huge breakfast with a flourish. First, we got an apple strudel, then a large bowl of strawberries and finally a crepe filled with salmon... crikey! (Our assumption that this was a holiday treat was incorrect, as we got a three course breakfast the next day too).

The Old Mill - Sandwich
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After breakfast we staggered outside with Donnie and Catherine, Catherine's aunt and a strange couple from Boston to check out the parade, which passed right in front of our hotel. The street was packed with what appeared to be the whole town and we wondered who would actually be in the parade. A strange assortment of everyone else, it turned out, all decked in the stars and stripes. Our landlady seemed a bit embarrassed at the quality of the parade and explained that the local band had gone off to play in someone else's parade, and that the new council hadn't got round to organising any fireworks yet. No one else seemed to mind, though, especially the kids who were already hyperactive on all the sweets being thrown from the floats.

Hurry up, I can't hold it in much longer!
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Having exhausted both restaurants and the pub, we moved onto Falmouth, which was a bit of a shock after sleepy Sandwich, being busy and crowded, mostly with people driving round and round in circles trying to find somewhere to park. Here we had only managed to secure a rather souless hotel on the main drag into town, but at least we didn't have to sell a kidney to stay there. We took a drive to the local beach but baulked at having to pay $15 to park so headed on down the coast towards Chatham. We were disappointed that the "coastal" road runs almost entirely inland with no view whatsoever of the sea - in the spirit of true capitalism, all the nice beachfront real estate has been sold off to the highest bidder and little is accessible to your average tourist. However Chatham was pretty and after lunch we took a stroll down to the town's beach where we joined lots of other people lazing around in the sun watching the kids, the only ones brave enough to go in the freezing cold water, splashing about. Our drive back, looping up to the north and along protected and therefore undeveloped coastline, was prettier. At Orleans, we decided against the detour to crazy Provincetown and instead cut across to Brewster before heading back to the traffic jam in Falmouth.

Yes, they are all nuts
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On our second evening we caught the nice old trolley bus that runs from Falmouth to Woods Hole, a small village about 5 miles down the road. We were the only people on it, everyone else choosing to drive. Woods Hole, as it turned out, was exactly the place to be on a Sunday evening and everywhere was busy. We found a restaurant overlooking the marina and ordered some more clams. After the meal, getting chilly, we headed inside and were talked into taking part in their quiz night. Realising, after two rounds that this was an all-American quiz, and being unable to answer the questions, we decided to see how many points we could get without the humilliation of handing in silly answers. Phill scored well on the films round, but we had no chance of winning the prize - a voucher towards a meal which we wouldn't be able to use anyway, so we left before the end and headed to a pub recommended by our waitress. Her mates were in a band playing there and we fancied some live music. The pub was heaving and employed some of the most inefficient and miserable bar staff, who were more interested in counting their tip money than serving anyone. We squeezed into a small space at the bar and listened to lots of young kids telling each other how awesome their holidays had been while waiting to be served. The band was pretty good, but being old gits, we got bored of being crushed and not getting served so after a couple of hard-earned drinks we failed to tip the staff (a crime in the US punishable by a cold-fish stare) and paid a bomb for a taxi home.

We had planned to stay another couple of days in Cape Cod, but decided instead to head back to Newport for another night before dropping off the car back in Boston and heading on to New York for our last few days in the US.