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ROAD TRIP

Cape Cod Uncrowded

Summer on the Cape is justifiably famous, but the traffic can be a drag. In autumn, the tourists vanish, but the small-town charms and natural beauty remain.
By Brad Tuttle, October 2007 issue |

Food

Shopping

DAY 2
Five inches of rain fall during the night, but our car is mercifully not flooded. On our way to the Cape's fist, Provincetown, we stop at Nonnie's Country Kitchen, a breakfast-only favorite in Orleans with more than 1,000 decorative plates on the walls. Old-timers at the counter look us over, then jump back into a conversation about the Patriots. Without our asking, the waitress, who looks like the oldest of the old-timers, tells us she has no waffles or straws. I gorge on the breakfast special: a pancake that's bigger than most of the decorative plates, as well as eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee.

Jessica and I are unabashed New England-philes. We love the classic villages and often fantasize about giving the This Old House treatment to some weathered Victorian home in Vermont or Maine. Until that happens, we shop for home furnishings any time we're in New England. (Friends still make fun of us for driving--when Jessica was eight months pregnant--to Massachusetts to buy a couch.) We spend more than an hour at Snow's Home & Garden. I almost convince myself to pick up a couple of whiskey-barrel planters for the yard, before coming back to the reality that we'd have to leave behind our luggage or William's car seat to fit them in the car. A huge electric train display gets a big thumbs-up from Will.

We find a few mementos that don't take up too much space at Bird Watcher's General Store. I waver between a bird feeder that looks like a New England chapel and one that resembles a general store, before choosing the latter as a gift for my dad.

Once we're back on the road, the sun is so bright that Jessica pulls over to dig shades out of her bag. Will falls asleep moments later; rather than wake him, we skip the Wellfleet Flea Market, Cape Cod's biggest, in the parking lot of a drive-in theater.

In Provincetown, we have some time to kill before our ride with Art's Dune Tours, so I duck into the Lobster Pot to sample the clam chowder, which is super creamy. I'm a little disappointed that our tour isn't in the funky old Suburban from the brochure--it's in a modern SUV instead--but the scenery on the hour-long loop, through the forest, along the beach, and over remote, bumpy dunes, is gorgeous.

I carry Will, who fell asleep three-quarters of the way through the tour, to a bench in the middle of P'town. His eyes stay closed even when bikers rev their engines a few feet away. When he eventually wakes, we walk down Commercial Street, the wild main drag, peeking in the windows of S&M boutiques and shops dominated by two kinds of T-shirts: anti-New York Yankees and progressive ones like I (HEART) MY MOMS. I've never felt so utterly conventional.

Note: This story was accurate when it was published. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before planning your trip.

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