---

Winter either bites with its teeth or lashes with its tail. -- Proverb


And that’s the real truth as we bid farewell to Cape Cod. Despite that, we can tell you that we have enjoyed spending the winter here. Many folks have asked us to stay so we can enjoy their fabulous summer and beaches but soon it will be time for us to go. Besides, with the warmer weather approaching, the weekenders and the tourists will soon be back clogging the roads and restaurants.

Winter on Cape Cod is peaceful, serene and we have been happy to have this experience. There are plenty of homes available for rent both winter and summer so you may want to consider an extended stay. In the winter though, you get to meet the “real “ residents of the Cape and we have found them to be friendly, jovial and quite welcoming. There is no sense of real “hurry” here on the Cape, but rather a sense of enjoying the surroundings and reveling in the fact that you’re not part of the normal Northeast crowd.

We are a bit tardy in posting this blog as in reality, of these day trips occurred in January and February. We’ve decided to blame the weather because that’s what everyone else does and it’s the best we can do here.

This year Boston received 87 inches of snow and their normal average is about 42 inches. They had the third highest snowfall of any January since they have been keeping records. On the Cape we are happy to report that we received a fraction of the snow that they received in Boston but it came with regularity. We had measurable snowfall every 5 days from Christmas until the end of February. We don’t know our total but think it was about 25 inches. There was snow, wind, rain wind, and sometimes just cold wind……did we mention the wind?

But there were some very enjoyable moments. We headed to Boston for a weekend get away in early January and were met with mounds of snow, so we tucked ourselves in The Fairmont Hotel for most of the day and enjoyed the food, the pub and the ambiance. The only time we went out was to go to the theatre to see The Blue Man Group. They’re a gas and well worth the money!

As is our mantra, we’ve tried to explore most of the towns on Cape Cod while we were here. We’ve had a snowy winter (did we mention that yet?) so we enjoyed some weekends in local restaurants and going to movies.

One afternoon we needed to get out and explore so we headed to Sandwich, MA. It is a quaint seaside New England town and the oldest town on Cape Cod, 1639. That is very old for the US. We had a great time sitting in the bar at the British Brewing Company talking politics and medical care with one of the locals.

There is no shortage of nature walks in this part of the country and one of our favorites has been at the Wellfleet Nature Center. We wrapped up in every piece of cold weather gear we could find and went hiking in the snow. The trees were dressed in layers of white snow, the lake was frozen and the sun shining allowed the snow crystals to sparkle. There were a good number of birds frequenting the feeders in the nature center despite the freezing temperatures. Even in this frozen scene, there was beauty.

One snowy weekend (did we mention it snowed a lot?) we headed north to Rockport, Maine to visit our good friends Rick and Kim who live nearby. They took us to a delightful Mexican restaurant in Rockland called the Sunfire Grill. It was good seeing their house and getting caught up on their lives. A trip to the Sunfire Grill is worth it if you are in the area.

So there you have it. It snowed a bit, rained a bit and the wind blew….well a lot. But we still got out there and enjoyed because if you wait for the weather to get better before you do something, you’ll spend a lot of time waiting……so get out there and have a look in your neck of the woods.

---