Summer Ends on a Sweet Note as Four Seas Closes for the Season

The neon lights will turn off for the winter as Four Seas concludes its 75th year of serving some of the New England's finest ice cream.

Even though we are already waist-deep into September, summer only truly ends for me the day Four Seas closes its doors for the season. And today, my dear friends, is that sad day when they hold their annual closing sale where, in order to empty out their inventory, they sell pints and quarts at a 15% discount. The store will remain open until all their ice cream is sold out, which usually happens by 5 p.m. at the latest.

I arrived at Four Seas around 11 a.m. today to what I can only describe as a mad and desperate feeding frenzy. Four Seas had all of its staff on hand, so the service was as swift and cheerful as ever, but there was a true seriousness to be found in the faces of the customers. Stockpiling ice cream, it seems, is nothing to be taken lightly. Almost everyone left the store with large paper bags full of quarts of their favorites to get them through the long winter. I imagine that by the time of this posting, with just a couple hours left of the sale, Four Seas resembles something like End Times meets Lord of the Flies, so if you are brave and want to bid summer adieu properly, the time to get to Four Seas is now.

But, as the old saying goes, when Mother Nature closes a door, Tom Brady opens a window. Or something like that. So, as of today, ice cream is out, but football is in and so Cape residents will just simply swap one addiction for another. Go Pats!

Four Seas was packed. It was a slightly terrifying, sun-filled feeding frenzy.

Sushi of the (demi)Gods at Inaho

Inaho is housed in a sweet little spot on 6A in Yarmouth Port

It is a sad truth that a girl cannot live on fried seafood and ice cream alone. God knows that during Cape Cod summers I sure have tried. And yes, with my high level consumption of both clam chowder and Black Raspberry ice cream, I’m definitely getting enough calcium, but occasionally I crave something that won’t make it impossible to fit into my jeans. And when this time comes, my first destination is the wonderful and elegant Japanese restaurant Inaho – located on Route 6A in Yarmouth Port.

Ice Cream Cafe – The (Other) Best Ice Cream on Cape Cod

If the 80s are back in fashion, then the Ice Cream Cafe's sign is really in vogue

As I sat on the porch at Ice Cream Cafe in Orleans, greedily demolishing my cone of Peppermint Stick, I wondered to myself if I had been too quick to declare, as I had done on this blog two months earlier, that Four Seas serves the best ice cream on Cape Cod.

When I visited the Ice Cream Cafe, I did so with a bit of childish skepticism. I knew my favorite ice cream place, and this wasn’t it, so why was I here? And when I saw the woman in front of me in line receive her ice cream in a chocolate dipped waffle cone with a topping of gummy bears (making her cone look more like a Pop-Art installation than a delicious dessert) I questioned the sanity of both the scooper and the customer. Gummy bears on ice cream? Is nothing sacred? But it was my turn to order, so I stuck with a standard that I’ve been ordering at Four Seas since the age of three – Peppermint Stick in a sugar cone, and, for the love of all that is holy, please hold the gummy bears.

Getting Lost and Found at Punkhorn Parklands in Brewster

The beautiful green-hued light that comes from the boggy bits of Punkhorn Parklands drew me in like a siren's song.

You know those visualization exercises where you’re supposed to conjure up a safe and happy place? Well, mine goes something like this: I’m walking through some obscure patch of woods on Cape Cod. No one is around. It’s quiet. It’s beautiful. I’m filled with peace. Then I see a small, unmarked trail and, after deciding to follow it, I stumble upon a perfect, people-free, undiscovered pond where I have a leisurely swim in waters as sweet as honeysuckle and as gentle and inviting as an old cotton t-shirt. So, that’s the pinnacle. That’s what I’m searching for when I incompetently bumble around these conservation lands, and national parks, and random patches of shaggy scrub pines. But, that happy place is pure fiction. What I tend to experience instead is a bit dirtier, more comical, and a lot less placid. It always involves mosquitoes, getting lost, getting found, and getting lost again, yet, sometimes, just sometimes, I get a brief encounter with the happy place I’ve settled on in my mind. And so it was yesterday, as I battled my way through the endless maze of trails in Punkhorn Parklands in Brewster. With my sneakers blackened by bog gunk, my dog about to collapse from dehydration (and resentment) and only the GPS on my iPhone to guide me, I found my way to that perfect pond, took a serene swim, and snatched a moment from time where my real matched my ideal.

An Afternoon on Commercial Street

Cars beware! On Commercial Street pedestrians and bikers rule. So, to all those drivers out there, roll your windows down, go 3 miles per hour, and, for goodness sake, park your car as soon as possible, and get out into the action.

In “Land’s End,” novelist Michael Cunningham’s must-read book about Provincetown, he writes,

Provincetown is, has always been, an eccentrics’ sanctuary…It is the only small town I know of where those who live unconventionally seem to outnumber those who live within the prescribed boundaries of home and licensed marriage, respectable job and biological children…Among strollers and shoppers [on Commercial Street] on a summer afternoon, it is not unusual to see, within a fifty-foot radius, all of the following: a crowd of elderly tourists who have come for the day on a tour bus or have disembarked from a cruise ship anchored in the harbor; a pack of muscle boys on their way to the gym; a vacationing mother and father shepherding their exhausted and fussy children through the shops; a pair of lesbians with a dachshund in a rainbow collar; two gay dads in chinos and Izod shirts pushing their adopted daughter in a stroller; a dread-locked and ostentatiously tattooed young woman who works at the head shop; a man dressed, very convincingly, as Celine Dion; elderly women doing errands; several closeted schoolteachers from various parts of the country who come to Provincetown for two weeks every year to escape the need for secrecy; several weary fisherman coming home from their stints on a scallop boat; a bond trader with three-hundred-dollar sandals up for the weekend from New York; and a brigade of furious local kids on skateboards, seeing how close they can come to the pedestrians without actually knocking one over, a stunt that is usually but not always successful.

Throughout “Land’s End,” Cunningham perfectly and lovingly captures Provincetown in all of its strange and glorious beauty. And I couldn’t help but think of the above description chronicling the rich and vibrant street life found on the town’s main drag as I walked along Commercial Street for an afternoon of window shopping and practicing the underrated art of loafing around.

Now, first let me discuss the limited scope of this blog post. The rich gallery scene, the vast cultural offerings, and the incredible night life will be not be included here. Each deserves its own space – and I will be sure to get to them soon. So, let this blog post act as just a dip of the toe into the ocean of things that can be said about Commercial Street.

A Tale of Three Beaches

Marconi Beach

The Cape Cod National Seashore waved their usual $15 beach entrance fees last weekend and the timing couldn’t have been better. After a rather chilly and wet summer, the weather has turned hot, hot, hot and I decided that there was no better way to cool off than to spend the day submerged in the bracing waters of the National Seashore. But settling on just one beach on such a perfect beach day simply wouldn’t do. So, yesterday I went to three out of the five beaches of the National Seashore (Race Point, Herring Cove, and Marconi) in order to conduct my own informal, unscientific survey of these incredible treasures.

Getting Crafty in Cotuit

For two short, perfect summer days, from August 14 to Saturday, August 15th, over a hundred sweet white tents full of arts and crafts will occupy the gently sloping park that surrounds the Cotuit Federated Church and the town library. It is the 39th Annual CraftFest in Cotuit – a compelling combination of local food, local crafts, and local performances.

A Puppy’s Paradise at Kent’s Point in Orleans

My dog, following her bliss, at the dog-friendly Kent's Point Conservation Area. This clearing is the former location of the house of Charlotte Kent, who was the original owner of the property. She sold the land to the town of Orleans in 1988.

Most beaches become dog-free zones in the summer months, making Cape Cod dogs some of the few creatures living amongst us that cannot wait for October to roll around so that they may, once again, experience the simple pleasures of fetching a stick in the ocean without restriction or impunity. Because our usual walking spots are now the breeding grounds for piping plovers and (extremely noisy) least terns, as well as the playground of families from all over the country, my dog and I have taken to the woods, but, alas, the mosquitoes and ticks have simultaneously taken to feasting on our flesh. And there’s nothing like a pesky mosquito fanatically buzzing around your head to make you ache for the strong ocean breeze that is, as of now, strictly off-limits to my dog and me. But, while I was canoeing around Pleasant Bay in Orleans a couple weeks ago, I spotted something that excited me more than any of the other wonders I encountered that day; I saw four dogs (with three humans in tow), off leash, swimming in the ocean and running on the beach. Any dog owner will understand that a sight such as this is something worth investigating. I quickly found out that this puppy Valhalla is Kent’s Point, a 24 acre conservation land in Orleans, and, after my faithful companion and I visited, I am happy to declare it the best place for dogs on Cape Cod.

Picking Blueberries at Taylor-Bray Farm

The large number of unripened blueberries at the Taylor-Bray Farm's blueberry patch means that they'll be be berries to pick for the next couple of weeks - at least!

We are thick into blueberry-picking season and I don’t know of any pick-your-own spot more beautiful than the one to be found at Taylor-Bray Farm – a gorgeous, 22-acre working farm in Yarmouth Port that dates back to 1639. I arrived at the farm early in the morning – tupperware in hand – ready to do some serious picking. As I walked the verdant fields toward the blueberry patch, with views of the Black Flat marsh stretched out ahead of me, I saw two cottontail bunnies hopping about and a multitude of swallows flitting and flying low along the grass. And then I saw the glorious blueberry bushes, standing at about 7 feet tall and heavy with both ripened and unrippened berries. Ah, yes, I thought. This is a perfect summer moment.

I got right into the patch, greedily picking all that my quickly working fingers could grab. My mind emptied and quieted. Much like a ninja (if a ninja picked his own fruit, which I’m sure he does), I was focused; I was quick; I was agile. As soon as my tupperware was full, I climbed into my car, my hands wrapped around my bounty. Then I looked at the time – an hour and a half had passed since I had arrived at Taylor-Bray Farm. Had it been that long? It only felt like a few minutes.

Finding Gold at The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown

Beginning in the summer of 1899, when the Cape Cod School of Art was founded, and continuing up to today, Provincetown has been one of the nation’s foremost artists’ colonies – a place where artists of all varieties could live, learn, and be inspired by each other and by their surroundings. Carrying on the tradition is one of Provincetown’s most honored arts institutions, The Fine Arts Work Center on Pearl Street. The FAWC has been around since 1968, making it the country’s oldest continuous artist colony.

For the entirety of the summer, The Fine Arts Work Center holds visual arts and creative writing workshops that are taught by some of the country’s most accomplished artists. And, lucky for us, the FAWC arranges for these artists and writers to give artist talks and readings to the general public. Last Monday’s lineup was irresistible: the poet Ralph Angel, the novelist Colum McCann, and the artist Peik Larsen were all scheduled to share glimpses of their most recent projects. I had been looking forward to going for weeks, yet, as I faced the hour and a half long drive from my home in Mashpee to Provincetown and then back again, my mind raced with any excuse available to cancel my much anticipated plans. Was an evening of highfalutin artsy entertainment enticing enough to justify spending over 3 hours in Cape Cod traffic? The answer, it turned out, was an emphatic yes.