After spending Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday in the lower Cape, we decided to explore the upper Cape the latter half of our week. We started in Wellfleet, which promised us a bookshop to browse in and beaches to stroll on.

It’s surprisingly difficult to get to the shore from here in Boston, particularly since we don’t own a car. So it was a treat to walk on some actual sand again (something I used to do almost weekly back in Michigan).

I basically wanted to relocate to every cottage we passed on the Cape, particularly the weather beaten ones.

Walking along the boardwalk at the marina, we were tickled to see this boat (named in reference to the X-Files perhaps?). And along the main street in town we saw this plaque, which made us wonder whether John and Rodney had decided to relocate from Nantucket.

Along the main drag, we also saw this beautiful church doorway.

On our way back from Wellfleet, we stopped at Kemp Pottery, and found this inexplicable series of tiles:

One of the potters was at work in the studio working on a series of amphoras to be given as awards for a local sports hall of fame. Here, you can see runners and bikers on the unfinished pieces (yes, the figures have tiny dicks):

We ended up splurging a little on two plates — not the official wedding plates Kemp Pottery makes, but which we think of as our wedding plates all the same.

When we got home after our honeymoon, we had our last two pieces of wedding cake (delicious chocolate cake given to us by my colleagues at the MHS) on our new wedding plates.

Up next … another afternoon of beach walking in Chatham …

On our honeymoon, Hanna and I had a whole week on Cape Cod to explore. A native Michigander, I had never been out to the Cape at all and Hanna had only been once, years ago, and then only to Provincetown (more on there later). We didn’t make any hard-and-fast plans about our week of activities, and instead set out to explore.

On Monday we drove back up the Cape to Falmouth and began our day with breakfast at Pop Kitchen, which served up eggs benedict and omelettes and bottomless coffee.

Hanna & her coffee (used with permission)

The decor was bright and the food tasty; the only thing to mar the meal was the jerk the next table over on vacation from North Carolina who harassed his waitress and wouldn’t stop gabbing on the phone about how much everything sucked. Proof, I suppose of what we already know: rude people exist pretty much everywhere.

After breakfast, we walked out to Wood’s Hole, where the ferries leave for Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. It was a beautiful eight-mile round trip walk along the Shining Sea Bikeway.

One of the first buildings we came to in Wood’s Hole was the local NPR affiliate, WCAI, operating out of this home-like building. Between that and the tasty coffee shops, we felt quite at home!

When we got back to Falmouth we went in search of a salon that would do gel manicures — something Hanna had requested as a treat during our vacation.

The salon we found, Bellezza, didn’t have two back-to-back appointments until the following day (which was also forecast to be rainy) so we returned on Tuesday for ice cream and some pampering.

I had never had a manicure before and it was a very odd experience, but the woman who did our nails was very chatty and a fellow cat person, so we mostly talked about the inexplicable activities of our respective feline companions.

The gel manicures were awesome (speaking as someone who always nicks my polish) though expensive; I can’t imagine people who have enough money to make this a regular thing. But it was still fun to have bright color for a couple of weeks.

When we got back to Eastham in the late afternoon, the rose bush on the south side of the cottage had decided to greet us with a few autumn blooms.

Up next: Wellfleet, then Provincetown!

And yes, I do have a few posts of substance rattling around in the back of my mind — one on work, class, financial (in)security, and responsibility, particularly, but I’ve been trying to write it since I was promoted in August and it still hasn’t sorted itself out. So you’re getting pretty pictures instead! I hope you enjoy them.

For our honeymoon on the Cape, we chose to stay in a cottage colony just north of Orleans called Cranberry Cottages; we were in a little studio cottage called “The Honeymooner,” though we didn’t realize that until after we’d arrived!

At the “elbow” of the Cape, the Orleans-Eastham area is a great spot — if you have a car — to explore up and down the Cape. With a week to poke around, we picked a different destination almost every day and took in what there was to see (and taste!).

On our first morning we walked out from our cabin to the rail trail that took us directly into Orleans on foot, where we breakfasted at The Hole in One donut shop and restaurant. Breakfast was so tasty that we decided to take our donuts to go, and have them as a mid-afternoon snack!

What’s a honeymoon / vacation for if not for sitting in Adirondack chairs drinking coffee, eating donuts, and catching up on one’s leisure reading?

For dinner, we found a great restaurant called the Box Office Cafe that offered a wide variety of unique movie-themed pizza. We got the Beetle Juice pizza that featured (vegan) chicken, blueberries, and BBQ sauce. Hanna was skeptical, but I persuaded her and we enjoyed it so much we bought it twice more before the week was out!

Next up … our two days in Falmouth (one outdoorsy, one pamperingly girly).

*In the event that folks have noticed, I’m the only person depicted in these photographs not because Hanna decided not to come along on our honeymoon but because she doesn’t like to share pictures of herself with the world, online or off.