When Lily was a bit younger one of her favorite movies was the musical version of The Producers with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. We must have watched it 50 times over the course of a year. One of the songs is a great song about keeping it gay, and we thought of this as we walked down the streets of Provincetown....
Wow! Wow! Wow! What a trip!!! Yesterday, after riding our bikes to the beach and doing an amazing beach walk we decided to drive in to Provincetown, MA, the place where the pilgrims landed first. The story is that the pilgrims arrived in Provincetown only to find that the closest potable water was 9 miles south in North Truro, so after 5 weeks they up and left. Provincetwon was amazing. There are maybe 3700 full-time residents, but during the peak summer months there can be 60-70,000 people a day who come through. Provincetwon also happens to be one of the gayest cities in the nation. Rumor has it that there are only a handful of children a year birthed in Provincetwon because there are so few straight couples. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do know that this is Women’s Week and the place was packed full of lesbians. It was crazy! I mean, we’re from San Fran and have plenty of exposure to all lifestyles, but this was like being invited to someone’s private party. We had a series of wonderful events, one of them being an amazing trolley tour and then ending up at a restaurant (which by the time we left was packed, and only 4 male customers!) The town itself was beautiful. Old buildings, narrow streets, something like 200 art galleries. Cork’s back was acting up so we were heading back to the RV when we spotted this trolley car with people getting off. I asked the driver what it was about and we decided to give it a try. It was about an hour tour of Provincetown, tooling through back streets that would be hard to find on your own, then out to beaches and historic points of interest. It was the best tourist bang for our buck we’ve done other than Niagara Falls. One fact that I found particularly interesting is that originally when Provincetown was founded, much of the industry was happening out on the very tip. As the industry moved more towards the Provincetown of today, people wanted to move back too. However, many people didn’t want or couldn’t afford to rebuild, so they floated their houses across the bay and dropped them in Provincetown. You can do a walking tour just by searching for the houses with plaques that have a symbol of a house on waves… It was a beautiful day with a GREAT meal at the end, and by the time we got back to our campsite it was just beginning to drizzle. Always thinking, Cork packed up all of our bikes etc.. just in case. Sure enough, by the time we crawled into bed it was POURING, and has been for the last 15 hours…. So needless to say, we’re on the move!
(all my get up and go just got up and went and I don't have the juice to wait for pictures to upload, so they'll follow later...)
