June Roadtrip, Day 3

Day 3 in the WeAreThatFuckingCool, Inc., Summer Spectacular Roadtrip, Version 2, is complete.

(Posted Saturday morning at 4:42 a.m. because the cable and cable internet at the hotel was down on Friday)

Friday morning - Wellfleet, MA

7:30 woke up.

8:15 leave for Provincetown

8:30 Make a wrong turn (totally Eric's fault) trying to take the shoreline entrance to Provincetown. End up driving down Commercial Street.

8:50 Arrvie at McMillian's Wharf. Park.

9:00 Get tickets for Whale Watch

9:10 Get breakfast from Portuguese Bakery. Yum.

9:15 Get in line for Whale Watch boat leaving at 10.

9:25 Are 3rd and 4th person on Whale Watch Boat. Proceed to the front (that's the bow) and take up our typical Front Fucking Row seats (see blogs on Gomez, Wilco and repeated AUE shows for details).

10:00 With three toots of the big horn on the boat, we are underway.

10:01 until 1:15 p.m. - Stellwagen Bank and whale watching.

Us. On The Boat.

We saw four finback whales. Finbacks are the second largest animal on the planet. Kara, who has a fear of un-normally large things (like planes, and whales) was thrilled by these aquatic mammals. They can be up to 90 feet long. The whales we saw were between 50 and 70 feet long.

The naturalist onboard the whale watch boat was shocked to see two finback whales lunge-feed on the hordes of sand eels that were in the water ... she said in 21 years of whale watching, including 10 on cape Cod, she's never seen an open-mouthed finback lunge feed until our trip.

I have that shit on video ... old school camcorder video ... that I'll have to capture to PC and then post after we get home on Sunday.

And then we saw three humpback whales, including Rapier and her new calf, nursing, and another humpback that the naturalist couldn't readily identify.

I'll sum up the whale watch with this ... it was fucking amazing. Seeing them, in their environment, made me cry. And this was my 5th whale watch since 1999, so it's not like it's a new thing to me.

For Kara, on her first, she was quite amazed. I'm sure she'll post her thoughts.

After we got off the boat we went to the Landmark Restaurant and had some amazing burgers. Not Tessaro's good, but damn near close. And talked to Larry, the co-owner, who was waiting tables, bartending, and probably cooking as well. Very funny man.

Then it was shopping.

On Commercial Street.

Kara bought some body lotion and a candle holder, and a hoodie that they made for her .. she said I want this design on this color in this size and BAM ... there it was in less than 2 minutes. Pretty Fucking Cool.

And postcards to send home ... and t-shirts. And souvenirs. And and and and Kara bought four books at the used book store that prompted a pretty long discussion with the book store owner about the various segregations in the state of Ohio when it comes to colleges and people.

Then we realized how exhausted we were and headed back to the hotel. We got some Dunkin Donuts coffee (well, I did) and found out they open at 5 a.m. (YAY ... coffee on the way out of town tomorrow). And some really bad subs.

But we had pretzels and cookies in the room.

And no internet ... apparently it was down. So this might get posted on Friday ... or it might wait until Sunday when I'm home.

But that was it. We were in the room by 5:30. Tired. Sunburned. And worn out.

I was asleep before 9 ... I totally pulled a Lauren. Kara read for a while. Don't know when she fell asleep.

Tomorrow - we're up at 4:30 and on the road at 5 to get to Cincinnati for Autumn Under Echoes.