Arriving in Cape Cod: Afternoon in Falmouth

Dave’s grandparents bought a house on Cape Cod, in Falmouth Heights, back in the early 60s when beach houses on Cape Cod cost approximately 10 cents. Or, anyway, some amount that made them within reach for middle and working class families. So Dave grew up spending time there almost every summer, and I joined him for the first time back when we were dating in college. And then we took our three oldest kids there every summer, too….until a few years ago when Dave’s parents decided to give up their share of the Falmouth house and Dave’s aunt and uncle started living there full time for much of the year.

It was the right decision for everyone for a lot of reasons, and we’ve enjoyed summer trips to more diverse destinations over the past few years….but a big part of me will always be nostalgic for our Falmouth summers, and that’s even more true for Dave.

We were back on the Cape the summer I was pregnant with Abe, staying at a house in Chatham, but we hadn’t been back since Abe was born. All of my other kids had made their first Cape trip by the time they were six months old, so Abe was way past due for his Cape Cod debut. We spent five nights in Eastham, and I’ll talk about our time there in my next few posts, but today is all about the aforementioned nostalgia. Plus our stopover in Falmouth on our way onto the cape.

Some of my favorite photos of the kids were taken on the porch of the house in Falmouth. Like this one of one year old Milo:

I came across this one of all three older boys when I was going through old photos last night. So little!

And here’s a family portrait from when Gus was a tiny baby in his beloved fleece pouch, on Falmouth Heights Beach:

We hadn’t made it to Falmouth on our last Cape visit, so we knew we wanted to try to fit it in this time. We had a short driving day from Mystic, so we were able to stop by for a nice lunchtime visit with two of Dave’s aunts plus his parents (they stayed near us in Eastham and were already settled in their rental house, so they drove over to meet us in Falmouth).

We had planned to park the trailer at the Wal-mart and then get a ride to the house, but Dave’s Dad called while we were on the way to say that they’d walked down to the harbor and there was plenty of parking there.

And the trailer got a really nice view while we were gone:

This was a weekday in early June; I wouldn’t count on finding a space here on a weekend or during July or August (and no overnight parking is allowed), but it was perfect for what we needed.

We left the dogs crated in the house and went out to lunch at the British Beer Company; it’s an easy walk from the house and right across the street from Falmouth Heights Beach, so we’ve been here dozens of times over the years.

And then the kids got their first encounter with the ocean:

And then we hung out on the big front porch back at the house for awhile before it was time to vacate our awesome parking space and head to Eastham. Also, when I was going through the photos, I realized I have no decent ones of any of the people we were visiting with. Sorry Mary Ellen and Kathy! Thanks for having us, Mary Ellen, and for the ice cream and a place to stash the dogs while we went out to eat!