Today we checked out of the Hilton in Providence and took Tom’s coach to Cape Cod in Massachusetts to get to our new hotel. Along the way, we stopped in Middleboro at one of Ocean Spray’s cranberry bogs. I always thought New Jersey was big on cranberries, but apparently this part of Massachusetts is. The lady at the bog gave us way more information than we ever needed to know about cranberries, but it was very educational. From there, we went on to Plymouth, where we discovered the Pilgrims did not necessarily land in America first, but it is where they set up their colony. We also learned that of the 102 Pilgrims on the ship, nearly half of them died in the first year. They kind of landed a little late in the season. We ended the day with a delicious clam bake and sunset at the new hotel.

Cranberries, Plymouth, & Cape Cod

06/25/21—07/04/21

On the coach, we learned how important the whaling industry was to the area in the past. Of course, cranberries were today, and the bog in Middleboro was in the middle of the growing season, so we didn’t see the red fields or the floating cranberries. When I Google Earthed, though, you could see it. We learned about the health benefits of cranberries as well. It was extremely hot at the bog, and the guide kept us outside too long. Still, we enjoyed it.

We did a quick photo opportunity stop at a grist mill in Plymouth.

In Plymouth, we were dropped off near the famous rock. It was lunch time, though, so we just walked across the street and got some grub.

After lunch, we walked over to Pilgrim Memorial State Park and saw the famous rock. I’m not sure what Pilgrim carved the date in it, or if every Pilgrim actually stepped foot on it, but hey, it was cute. Next we walked to Mayflower II. Although there are no known specs for the actual Mayflower, they believed this replica to be fairly accurate based on other similar ships and records of the conditions. I took a tour of the Mayflower II, learning how the Pilgrims primarily stayed under the outside deck in a space that was only 5’ tall and only had enough room for everyone to lay down. No one died on the 10 week journey to America, but because they landed in November, they had no time to prepare for winter.

We ended our time in Plymouth with some non-dairy ice cream and then a visit to the National Monument to the Forefathers.

Leaving Plymouth, we crossed the Cape Cod Canal and officially entered what is know as the Upper Cape of Cape Cod. We ended up at Old Silver Beach near Falmouth at the Sea Crest Beach Hotel. The place was broken up into multiple buildings, each one with their own personality. We were in Building 7, Infinity, which was close to the lobby and the restaurant where we had breakfast each morning and our clam bake Monday night. Our tour group contained a lot of people from Ohio and the Midwest. Many of them had never been to New England and it seemed like hardly any of them had ever had the pleasure of cracking open a whole lobster. It was a lot of work, and the food got cold quickly, but we still enjoyed the lobster, clams, mussels, potatoes, and other aspects of the clam bake.

The hotel was on the beach, so we walked out and found a good spot among rocks to watch the sun set. It had cooled off tremendously from the hot day in Plymouth, but the sunset was spectacular.

Tuesday morning was beautiful at Sea Crest, with all of their hyacinths in full bloom. The indoor pool had this cool mural above it of these very colorful wooden beach chairs. Those chairs could be found all around the hotel.