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Published: September 27th 2013
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Ogunquit, Maine
Entrance to Marginal Way September 26, 2013
It was a lovely morning, we were up early walking "Marginal Way" which is a paved walkway with the Ogunquit Beach on one side and beautiful inns and homes on the other. Following the advice of our inn owners our destination for the two mile walk was the Cove Cafe where I had the best crab cakes I've ever had, and according to the waitress just about everyone that orders them says the same thing. It's hard to get crab cakes right. The seasoning is either too bland or too strong and the cracker filling is too much or too little. These were perfect, but the waitress couldn't get the owner/chef to give me the recipe.
Neither of us had ever been to Cape Cod before and now we're not real eager to go there again. This place just didn't impress us like we imagined it would. It was a very nice day, so it wasn't the weather. A very nice man in Hyannis Port (by the way downtown Hyannis Port consists of the post office and one store that was closed for the season) spent 10 minutes giving us information about the Kennedy's and the
Ogunquit, ME
Along Marginal Way area, so that was interesting. But, there was so much traffic on the road that runs down the middle of the cape that driving is no fun. We can't imagine how jammed that road must be in the middle of the summer. Many beach areas were open to the public, but the parking areas for those beaches had signs that said "Resident Permit Required," a bit unwelcoming for the outside visitor. Have to admit that Cape Cod National Seashore is nice, but we saw only a small part of it. I'm sure if we had spent more time in the little communities of Cape Cod, our impression would have been more favorable.
In most states, all beaches are open to the public up to the high water line and that is what we are used to. So, we decided to walk on the beach that runs in front of the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port. There were no signs identifying the property, only "Do Not Enter" signs on all the surrounding streets, but I had previously looked up the address on Google. There was a sign that said "Private Property" but we assumed it was for the houses and
Ogunquit, ME
Perkins Cove Bridge their yards and not the beach. We walked to where three workers were attempting to brace the small cliff in front of the area to prevent further erosion. I innocently asked them pointing up, "Is that the Kennedy Compound?" One lady worker said, "Up there? I don't know." Yeah, right. She's a local and doesn't know? I snapped a few photos anyway. We continued walking until we could go no further because of the rocks so we turned around and started walking back to our car. As we walked back again in front of the compound, a guy came down some wooden steps toward us but didn't say a word and just turned around and walked back up. So later, I'm using Joe's Android to try to figure out what houses were what and I read that the beach we were on is the Kennedy's private beach. I'm sure that guy was security, but when he saw we were leaving decided not to confront us. So, today we learned in Massachusetts there are private beaches. Ethel still lives in a house there, but the biggest home, the original home of Joe and Rose has been donated to the Edward Kennedy
Institute for the U.S. Senate, not sure what that is. We are surprised that as important as this area is to U.S. history that there is no attempt to share it with the public.
We are now in Fairhaven, Massachusetts for the night. I checked off two more states today, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, 47 down, 3 to go.
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Lois Settles
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We have spent two weeks in Cape Cod, both in October and never went to Hyannis Port! We were in a time share away from all the traffic, but surely agree it is awful there. If you want to leave the island never go during 6:00 am to 9:00 pm. They simply do not have a good plan for dealing with the all the tourists. We did take a ferry over to Nantucket both times. Bob's blood father's (Bob Barnard) family was on of eight families who settled there are original families. All Quakers. Got some great information even to where their house was on an old map. I won't go it to it but we bought a book telling about them from the book store, etc. Lovely island, but terribly expensive. We could not pay $450 a night to stay there. Just took the ferry early and stayed late to take it back. Good restaurants and nice historic makers, etc. Bob's great, great (don't know how many greats) grandfather was a whaler!!! People who were at the timeshare were friendly, but it is not a place we would have gone back to if we had not wanted to know more about the Barnards.