Cape Cod Rail Trail

We had breakfast in our cottage, praising ourselves for our virtue in avoiding all the cool little breakfast places nearby. Then we geared up for a bike ride and headed off around 10:00 to rent bikes for the day and ride the Cape Cod Rail Trail. At the bike rental shop, we were able to rent a backpack, which was very helpful for carrying snacks and my contact lens supplies. Dan took off on his bike over the deep gravel of the parking lot like it was nothing, but my bike was a little too big for me, had been left in a high gear, and in the deep gravel I fell off immediately, giving myself some truly stunning bruises. After making a few adjustments to the bike and getting onto a harder surface though, things went better. It was a beautiful sunny day to be out riding, and we followed the trails into some of the local towns, past cranberry bogs and ponds, and had a great time. We got amazingly hungry though, after four hours of riding, and since the food we had brought with us was long since gone, we stopped at a little store for Cliff Bars and cookies, and Dan found a teenager with a Bianchi bike (Dan rides a Bianchi back home), and they had a long chat about bikes.

We returned the bikes around 3:30, by which time my knee that I injured in spinning class last winter, was giving me a little trouble. We went back to the cottage, changed into street clothes and walked up to the library to check our email. Chaos had not ensued at my office without me there (shocking!), and all seemed more or less right with the world. We headed back home, stopping for hot tea at the Brewster General Store. Once home, we weighed our options and decided to see if we could catch a few stores open in Chatham. So we went to Chatham, where I tried once again to get a small shirt featuring the White Cat of Chatham. Just like last year though, they had no small shirts, or even large ones in children's sizes. None with the white cat, anyway. So I had to content myself with a cap. After that we went to my favorite Cape bookstore-- Yellow Umbrella Books, where I found a nice book on Cape Cod: The Enduring Shore, and Dan picked up a copy of Stove By a Whale, which is the sequel to Heart of the Sea.

After a quick walk on the beach, we decided that a lobster dinner was in order and went to The Lobster Claw, taking our host's advice that the touristy places were the best ones for lobster. The food was good, but I had forgotten what a barbaric hassle it is to get to the good stuff on a lobster. There's something about ripping apart a whole animal that makes vegetarianism seem so much more civilized.

After dinner, I was still craving sweets from our bike ride earlier in the day, so we stopped at a store where I bought some Pepperidge Farm cookies, which I had with vanilla soy milk back at the cottage. Taking a shower afterwards, I realized that my arms and shoulders were slightly sunburned from the ride. I knew I should've worn sunscreen!