Summer Bucket List 2018 on Upper Cape Cod

 Summer is finally creeping up on our seasonal town.  The first few weeks of June are filled with seemingly endless end of school year activities, dance recitals and baseball games which give way  to the last day of school with a huge collective sigh.  The promise of the next ten weeks filled with fun, activities and hopefully a few lazy days lounging on the beach fill my mind.  Labor Day seems light years away and I'm ready to focus on my Summer Bucket List.
  I look forward to summer vacation with heavy anticipation beginning as soon as April vacation ends. After a long, stormy winter,  I am so ready for warmer weather and beach days.  The sun setting later, strawberries, basil and tomatoes, ice cream for dinner, outdoor showers, morning dew on the grass, the smell of Coppertone on my skin and sand between my toes.  My Summer Bucket List is pretty simple but it's filled with all the things I plan to do.  Best of all, I've kept it easy this year.  Pretty much everything takes place in Falmouth, MA  or in a town close by (the Upper part of Cape Cod). The only exception is a quick trip to Martha's Vineyard but the ferry leaves from Falmouth.
  Living here is a gift but my life gets busy and it's easy to allow a boring to-do list to take over instead of enjoying what is right in front of me.  My Summer Bucket List is a pledge to myself and my family that I will take the time to savor my surroundings and celebrate this beautiful place with the ones I love.  I hope you plan a bucket list of your own or steal mine, if you want. These are the fun things I plan to do in Summer 2018:

Hike the Knob: The Knob, located in Woods Hole, MA has two short trails that lead to a spectacular view of Quissett Harbor and Buzzards Bay.  On a clear day, you can see New Bedford to the west, the Cape Cod Canal entrance to the north and the Elizabeth Islands to the south. Bring a cup of coffee to sip as you sit on the granite bench commemorating Cornelia Carey, the woman who donated this land to conservation so that everyone could enjoy its beauty. 
  http://saltpondsanctuaries.org/the-knob/

4th of July Parade:  There are actually quite a few 4th of July Parades that take place yearly in tiny

Annual 4th of July Parade, Quissett, MA

villages in Falmouth on July 4th.  They are typically very grassroots with kids riding decorated bikes and perhaps a vintage car or two with passengers waving flags.  Look in the local paper or on social media sites for times.  I like to go to the Quissett parade that kicks off sometime around 11:00am (these events are pretty laid back).  It features a homemade dragon manned by a dozen people and  satire of a current political theme which I don't always understand!

Ferris Wheel

Barnstable County Fair: I have been going to the Barnstable County Fair ever since I can remember.  It's dusty, hot and has all of the junk food you can possibly imagine.  There are all sorts of rides to make your stomach turn

and games to play and waste your money trying to get the big prize.  In the exhibit halls, you can
find local entries of baked goods, jellies, pickles, home grown vegetables, arts and crafts.  It's exciting to enter something then go to the fair to see if we won the blue ribbon in our category.  Val always seems to take home a glorious prize like "Best in Show" or the state award for her divine produce.

Sunset after an early evening swim

Pizza at Sunset:  Pack the cooler with drinks, grab a hot pizza to go and head to the beach.  Be sure to wear your suit for a swim in the water that's been warmed all day from the sun.  The best places to view the sunset in Falmouth are Chapoquoit Beach and Old Silver Beach.  Order your pizza from West Falmouth Market where they have homemade dough and all sorts of toppings.  Enjoy Mother Nature's spectacular nightly show.

Ice Cream Tour:  Sampling ice cream at various ice cream shops and documenting all the new flavors we try out on a long list near the summer calendar is a favorite of ours.  We will be sure to check out Smitty's Homemade Ice Cream, Somerset Creamery, Four Seas, Eulinda's and Polar Cave to name just a few.

Can't get enough of Smitty's Homemade Ice Cream

Mini Golf:  There must always be a summer mini-golf excursion, followed by ice cream, of course

Mini golf, family fun

(see above).  The perfect early evening adventure after a day at the beach that the entire family can enjoy.  Everyone is happiest when mom wins.  Cataumet Crossing covers both golf and ice cream.  Head to  Sandwich Mini Golf then conquer your ice cream appetite at
  Ice Cream Sandwich

Falmouth Farmers' Market:  Every Thursday from Memorial Day until Columbus Day, the Falmouth Farmers' Market is located at Falmouth Harbor from 12:00pm-6:00pm, rain or shine. You can find all sorts of fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables as well as mouth watering baked goods, jams, jellies and even fresh, hot apple cider donuts! Enjoy the ocean breeze and the view of the harbor as you shop and support local business.

Falmouth Commodores Games:  The Falmouth Commodores are part of the Cape Cod Baseball

Falmouth Commodores game

League where talented college players from all over the country come to play and be scouted.  The games are free, donations are gratefully accepted.  Where else can you sit under the stars and watch a relaxing and often exciting game of baseball?  Bring a blanket or a beach chair, get a hot dog and a soda at the snack bar and sit back and enjoy one of the best summer pastimes.

Beach Tour: In Falmouth, we are lucky to have so many choices when it comes to going to the

beach.  Hit the west side of town for beaches that offer the best sand bars at low tide.  Want a view of Martha's Vineyard?  Then stick to the town beaches near the center of town and East Falmouth. Feel like floating down a lazy river? Bring your boogie board to Wood Neck Beach where the tide rushes through. No matter your choice,  every beach has it's own personality.  That's why we spend a week in August making sure we visit at least every beach in Falmouth at least once.

Ready to boogie at Wood Neck Beach

Martha's Vineyard: Jump on a ferry in Woods Hole or at Falmouth Harbor and enjoy a thirty minute boat ride to the island of Martha's Vineyard.  Oak Bluffs is a scenic town with local shops, America's oldest carousel where you can try to grab the brass ring and a neighborhood of tiny gingerbread cottages at Oak Bluffs Campground to name just a few things to explore and do within walking distance of the ferry dock. A great idea for a day long excursion that can be taken at the spur of the moment.

ferry ride to Martha's Vineyard

Breakfast at the Village Cafe: I love to go out for breakfast.  One of my favorite spots is the

Village Cafe, West Falmouth MA

Village Cafe  in West Falmouth, open only for the summer season. Their gooey, frosted cinnamon rolls are not to be missed.  But there are a lot of great places to go fill up on great food before hitting the beach for a long day in the sun.  Other favorites include: Pie in the Sky a funky bakery in Woods Hole, love those popovers and  Mary Ellen's Portuguese Bakery  a local favorite for linguica and eggs.

S.U.P (Mastery):  This one's for me.  I finally bought myself a

stand up paddle board.  But here's the truth:  I don't know how to use it.  So, my goal is to get out there and paddle around small inlets at Menahaunt Beach and the marsh side of Chapoquoit Beach.  My plan is to get good at it so that I can at a moment's notice, pack up my car and get on the water to enjoy this beautiful place I call home.  If you want to do the same but don't have your own SUP, check out Mocean in Mashpee Commons.  They rent all sorts of gear. Excellent, friendly service and a local business I like to support.

Happy Summer!

Cocktails and Hors D'oeuvres

 My grandmother planted snap dragons by the breezeway door.  She hated salad and never missed her nightly cocktail. And since we are coming up on the end of May, it reminds me that she insisted on celebrating the summer holidays with a cook out at her house on Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day.
  My mother, being a dutiful daughter, agreed to bring the three of us kids while my father was out shell fishing for extra money, his night time summer job after a long day working for the local electric company.  I'm sure he preferred the quiet of the bay over the raucous opinionated arguments that inevitably surfaced around Grammy's kitchen table at these events.
 "Come over around 5:00 pm for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres." Grammy said in her sing song voice. (She never referred to pre-dinner snacks as, "appetizers".  It would have been gauche.)  My mother knew what that meant.  Never one to have a drink herself as she hated the taste of alcohol, she braced herself for a potentially long evening, the kind that drags on forever if you are the only one in the group not partaking.  She would need to take control of the reigns upon arrival.
  The cocktails consisted of your choice of vodka or whiskey purchased in gallon jugs and an array of mixers from cranberry juice to various flavored, sometimes flat, plastic liter bottles of soda.  Grammy and her husband, "Pressy", short for his middle name, Prescott, favored at the time vodka mixed with Fresca, that bracing grapefruit flavored soft drink, on the rocks, light on the Fresca.
 The bar was well stocked.  Er, crammed with sticky bottles jammed into the corner counter space behind the kitchen T.V.  I could barely pour myself a soda or a cranberry juice, which the kids were allowed to do since we were at Grammy's house.  I did need help reaching the glasses from the cabinet above, so I had to employ my sister with her long, lanky arms or a close by adult to reach one for me.  My favorite were a set of roughly worn plastic cocktail cups with a golf game sealed into the bottom.  Once you finished your drink, you could try to swirl the little white ball around to land it into the hole on the painted green, marked with a bright yellow flag.  This game occupied me for some time as any little nudge could knock the ball off its perch and I would have to start all over again.
  Although I was excited to score one of those plastic cups as mine for the evening, by far the most interesting and exotic item to me was the pint glass full of swizzle sticks collected from various swanky bars and restaurants in Falmouth and Woods Hole.  The solid red one with the lobster at the top and the large, loopy capital "L" from the "Landfall waterfront dining".  Navy blue with a regal crest at the top for Woods Hole Golf Club (the most exclusive golf club in town), bright yellow and hunter green ones, too but I don't recall what they were advertising.
  Hors d'oeuvres were typically cheese and crackers.  WisPride Spreadable Cheese, the bright orange and shockingly pink, port wine flavor was fancy.  If the gathering was impromptu, a can of Kraft Cheez Whiz graced the table, instead.  Either delicacy was served with Triscuit Crackers that inevitably grew stale in the damp, Cape Cod air.
  Without the hors d'oeuvres, these evenings could have gone terribly wrong as dinner seemed to take forever to get going.  By the time we arrived at the appointed time, no one had thought to prepare the charcoal for grilling.  Val poured the briquettes into the rickety grill, located the lighter fluid and admonished us to stand back as she lit a match and tossed it on top hoping it would ignite but at the same time, terrified it might explode from the accelerator and singe off her eyebrows.  After the excitement was over, I ran off to play and argue with my siblings and wait for what seemed like an eternity before being called for dinner.  It would be a while before the briquettes turned into smoking gray embers and hot enough to barely cook any traditional cook out meat.
  The dinner buffet was spread out on the kitchen table covered in a green and yellow floral, plastic table cloth to protect the wood underneath.  Hamburgers and hot dogs for the kids, steaks for the adults (Grammy made a big deal out of this and the kids knew not to ask for any.) Canned baked beans, Wise Potato Chips and possibly a salad brought by Val which was the only green vegetable in the offering.  For dessert, brownies from a box mix baked off earlier that day by Grammy, herself.  Although she didn't like to spend time in the kitchen, she also didn't shy away from new cooking inventions intended to make life easier.  Val insisted on making sweets from scratch for us at home but I loved Betty Crocker's chewy, fudgy version best.  The ice cream scooped on top may have had a layer of crystals growing on it from a long time spent buried in the freezer but kids don't care about that and we slowly ate it all up, dragging out our meal as we sat out on the deck while the bug zapper decimated mosquitoes.  By now, it was well past our usual bedtime and we knew we would have to go home after we finished.
  A gathering at Grammy's house always seemed to be an event.  I ran in and out of the house, as the  sun went down, mosquitoes in the damp air and the screen door slamming behind me, as the adults' loud conversation mingled with the sound of the Red Sox on the kitchen T.V.  Ice clinked, tumbling into glasses and someone used a swizzle stick to stir a cocktail.  Out on the deck, I watched my mother's silhouette lit by the kitchen light as she flipped burgers and steaks for dinner.  Grammy hugging us from her perch at the kitchen table as she spread processed cheese on stale crackers then popped one into her mouth. While these are not exactly the images my own children see when they gather at their grandmother's house on such occasions, my hope is that they will have just as fond memories when they look back in years to come.

Vodka and Fresca

(makes one cocktail)

1 oz. Schmirnoff Vodka

3 oz. Fresca

ice

  Fill a rocks glass with ice.  Add vodka.  Top off with Fresca.  Stir gently with a swizzle stick, never a knife, "You will stir strife!" according to Grammy.  No need for fancy garnishes.  Enjoy and have another, if you like.