When I win the lottery #854

{Arcadia in Cape Cod. Photo by Goodheart Properties}

Out of curiosity I clicked on one of my Google ads and this was what came up. The house is gorgeous in its simplicity, and not your typical beach cottage at all. There are multiple buildings, including a guest house with two bedrooms, and the Master Suite (check out the bathroom, I could fit my whole bathroom in just the shower area) is connected to the main house via a breezeway (that must be fun in the winter). I wonder if there is a helipad to make that commute to Boston a bit easier. Oh, and it is only $3.6 million!

Honky-tonk highway, or The Two Cape Cods

{6A in Yarmouthport originally uploaded by rmcgervey}

{The Edward Gorey House originally uploaded by bigskyred. Edward Gorey drew the wickedly macabre illustrations for the opening credits of PBS's Mystery! series, among many other things.}

{139 Main Street Yarmouthport, originally uploaded by hallet02675}

Here are some lovely photos, taken by others (we will discuss the voracity with which my camera eats batteries another time), of Main St. in Yarmouthport, from whence I just returned. It was a lovely trip, a beautiful town and area, with one nagging sidebar:

How is it that someplace so beautiful, so full of charm and history and loveliness, with so many things to do (beach, walk, antiques, art galleries, fresh seafood, ice cream, biking, fishing, gardens, etc), be so teeming with tacky tee shirt/beach towel/flip-flop shops, sad motels, greasy fish shacks, run-down bars, broken and neglected mini-golfs? Is there really that big a market for the latter? Driving down the main drag from Yarmouthport to Chatham, I was dumbstruck by the honky-tonkiness of what must have at one time been the epitome of American entertainment. The main drag in Myrtle Beach is like this as well. Crummy bars and tee shirt shops and icky motels mixed in with expensive high-rise condos on what really is otherwise a nice beach.

{Poor Tiger originally uploaded by tankengine}

Dear readers, are your local tourist spots schizophrenic as well? Please pipe in.

Recovery room

{The Garden Room at Agape Bed & Breakfast, Yarmouth Port MA}

I am very grateful that when I travel for work, I get to stay in hip 4- and 5-star hotels. They are stylish and modern and functional, but sometimes their manufactured newness bores me. I am fortunate, though, to have a cousin who owns a charming B&B on the bay side of Cape Cod. For this visit -- a three-day post-Chicago recovery + Mother's Day getaway with my parents and sister -- she's tucked me in to the pretty pink and white room pictured above, with a lovely white iron bedframe, wide-board floors that creak and slant in all the right places and -- one of my favorite luxuries -- a clawfoot tub in the bathroom. It is the epitome of "girly" and I love it.

This morning I walked down the road to the used book store, later I will venture to the interiors shop across the street, and then my mom and plan to go for tea at the little restaurant up the road. I believe this evening's entertainment includes a private performance of "living-room ballet" by my cousin's five-year old daughter (whom I have plans to kidnap and take home with me, but that's a story for another posting).