Cape Cod National Seashore Park

We experienced the Cape Cod National Seashore Park in two ways (map). One day we just wandered around in the dunes just north of Mayflower Heights, with no particular destination. The next day we rented bikes and biked in the part called Province Lands Trail (pdf). There are several places to rent bikes; we rented at a place called Gale Force Bikes and had a good experience. There is a little market/deli in the same building where you can grab some snacks and water. The ride was a blast. There were six of us and a young child. (You can rent trailers for kids naturally.)

Much of the area we walked and biked in was completely deforested by European settlers from 1650 and 1900. Some of the forest has grown back.

Quahog Clam

After just a few days in the Cape and you can’t help but run into the word “quahog” - pronounced "ko-hog". It is a type of clam that are particularly common from Cape Cod to New Jersey. Quahogs can also be referred to other names based on their size, e.g. littlenecks, topnecks, cherrystones, etc. The distinctive name comes from the once-extinct-and-now-partially-revived Narragansett (Algonquin) language.

The bucket of quahogs attached to this post are from a clambake we had on the beach. Tough life, we know.

Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum

We are in Cape Cod for the weekend. Today we stopped by the Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum for a few hours. The museum is in Provincetown, Massachusetts – at the tip of Cape Cod (map). The 252 foot Pilgrim Monument is an orienting landmark that can be seen for miles around and beckons you to climb it. The tower was built between 1907 and 1910 to commemorate the first landfall of the pilgrims in 1620. It was build to resemble the Torre del Mangia in Siena, Italy (all the more reason for us to climb it). The Siena tower is about 335 feet high.

The climb to the top of Pilgrim Monument tower is relatively easy; there are 60 ramps and 116 stairs (all inside). There is a nice view from the top as a reward. You should set aside about 20 minutes for climbing the tower and looking out from the top in all directions. Besides the monument there is the Provincetown Museum that you can easily spend about an hour looking through. (One ticket at $7 gets you both the monument and museum.) The one thing that we remembered the most from the museum was the exhibit on Donald B. MacMillan, a native of Provincetown. MacMillan journeyed to the North Pole with Peary in 1909 and then went on to explore Greenland, Nova Scotia, and Labrador (Atlantic Canada) among many, many other accomplishments. The main pier in Provincetown is named after MacMillan.