While visiting Cape Cod we went to the beach one day and found that a couple of guys were surfing!  The surf was normally pretty low but that day it was quite good.

Laddy enjoyed being at the beach although we weren’t able to let him go off-leash.

Here are some pictures:

While visiting Cape Cod we went to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute one day.  It’s in a collection of small buildings in a very small hamlet right on the edge of  Buzzards Bay, in the “armpit” of Cape Cod.

They had an outdoor tank containing two sea lions that had been rescued – both were not able to survive on their own as one is mostly blind and one had ‘failed to thrive’ as a pup and was a timid nervous female.  They were treated very well and the keepers engaged in ‘enrichment programs’ every day with them to keep them from becoming bored and listless.  It was sort of like teaching them tricks but not exactly.  The purpose was to give them something to think about and learn every day.

They also had a lot of aquariums with various kinds of fish.  Not a lot, but the purpose of this institute wasn’t to house and display different types of fish.  It is a private non-profit research and exploration of the oceans company.  It was very interesting.

Here are some pictures we took while there:

While on Cape Cod we visited a glass museum containing lots of glass lamps, dishes, and other items from the early days of Cape Cod.  There was a lot of really beautiful items and we learned a lot about how glass dishes and items are made and how molds, colors etc. are used.

While there we watched a glass-blowing demonstration where a lady who had been working as a glassblower for over 11 years made a wine goblet.  It was real interesting!

Here are some pictures of the process:

We’re in Cape Cod now for a couple of weeks and are really enjoying the beautiful area here.  We drove up to the very tip where there’s a small town called Provincetown.  If you look at Cape Cod as an arm with an elbow and wrist and the had is in a fist, Provincetown is where the fingers would be.  The pilgrims actually landed here before arriving at Plymouth, and spent a month resupplying.

We also drove along some of the shoreline and saw some people out clamming at the low tide.  There were some boats laying on their side in the mud and some trucks and cars out in the sand while people dug for clams.

We visited a lighthouse on the Atlantic side that had to be moved in 1996 due to the shoreline eroding.  It took them 7 months to lift it up off the foundation and roll it carefully about 100 yards to its new home.  We didn’t go up to the top of the lighthouse, unfortunately, because you had to schedule some time on a tour and we didn’t want to wait.  Oh well!

Here are pictures we took: