Dennis & Yarmouth

After leaving Scargo Tower, I got back on Rte. 6A and drove west through Dennis & Yarmouth.  In all the time I lived there growing up, if my parents did this drive I was bored to tears and it felt interminable.  It's not a drive I made as a teen or in my early 20s either.  Except once, and I'll get to that below.  I sure appreciate the beauty and quaintness now though!

First stop in the main part of Dennis was Nancy's Candy.  I only bought a bright blue glass bottle here. There were surprisingly no good magnets or postcards but it had the best selection of penny candy that I've seen in a real long time.  Really brought me back. Plus she also makes chocolate candy and she works on it in the store so you can watch too.

Out of curiosity, I wandered behind the store to find a few artisans and shops.

I'm sure you can imagine my reaction when I spotted this bottle tree....have I mentioned how much I love cobalt glass????  

I thought this was brilliant.  Pottery shards embedded in the cement foundation all the way around the pottery shop.

Bunting is very popular in this region and it looks striking on the old buildings, bandstands and wrap around porches of the oldest homes. 

I only took a few steps in to check out the dates on those graves.  They were very worn but I saw some from the 1700s. 

OK....so I may have made a trip or two out here in the late 80s, when I was immersed in all things Grateful Dead and had an all consuming crush on Bob Weir.  I wanted this sign.  Reeeeeeally bad.  One night in the fall of 1988, Holly & I decided to take a drive up here under the cover of darkness and try to steal it.  We went in her Dodge Dart because it was so much bigger than my Toyota, in case we had to steal the whole pole.  So we get here and we rocked the shit out of the pole to get it out of the ground so that we could work on the bolts.  Unfortunately, about 5' of pole came out of the ground, making what we thought was a  fairly short pole, twice as long. Those bolts are rusted on good and we couldn't budge them.  We decided there was no way we'd get back to Sandwich w/o being pulled over by the cops due to a 12' street sign pole sticking out of her car, so we abandoned our quest.  

Aaanywho, continuing on our tour down Rte. 6A, the next town west of Dennis is Yarmouth.  And incidentally, I could easily have kept pulling over to take pictures of the homes & shops, but I didn't.  The next stop for me was the Edward Gorey House, but I'll cover that in a post of it's own.  This church is across from the Gorey House.

And this old Inn is next to the Gorey House.  

I was trying to find a really cool tree I saw in a photo, out behind the Yarmouth Port post office and found this cobbler's shop/museum instead, ca. 1850.

 A good example of the kinds of old homes along Rte 6A.  The date on the chimney is 1680.  

After leaving Yarmouth, I went through Barnstable Village previously featured, and then got on the highway at Exit 6 to head home.  

Still so much more to see!!

Scargo Tower, Dennis, MA

We had a brief break from the humidity at the end of July and I took advantage of it by taking a morning trip to Dennis & Yarmouth.  I took the highway down to exit 9B in Dennis, and made my way north to Rte. 6A.  That whole corridor, which starts in Bourne and ends in P-Town, is a protected Historic District.  That's where you find the oldest homes and the most history of the area.  There are very strict rules about what a home can and can't have, including paint colours and whether or not window a/c units are allowed to be seen from the street.  Therefore, it's a beautiful ride past huge, white homes with old brick chimneys, inns, churches & graveyards, many which contain the town-founding families.

My first destination was Scargo Tower, in Dennis.  I'd been there once as a kid and once in the 80s but had no pictures of it.  It's really kind of off the beaten path and really doesn't get a lot of visitors and Russell had never even heard of it before.

The tower is on a hill and has a sweeping view from Sagamore Beach, all the way to Provincetown.  

Just a short climb to the top; I went up 3 times the day I visited so that tells you how easy it is!

The large body of water is Scargo Lake...the water on the horizon is Cape Cod Bay.  Scargo Lake is shaped like a fish.  There is a great Native American legend of how the lake got it's shape....do take a few seconds to read it HERE.  I'd like to head back there in the fall and maybe look for arrowheads.  

It was a little bit hazy & I'm not happy w/ my zoom lens,  but you can still see Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown.  

That's the lighthouse and cottage village at the tip of Sandy Neck Beach.  If you scroll back to the top of this post to the map, Sandy Neck is that chartreuse coloured spit of land in Barnstable.  

Sagamore Beach over on my side of the Canal.

The power plant in Sandwich.  I've heard if it's really super clear, you can even see the top of the Sagamore Bridge.

One more trip up to shoot the cool clouds

And my car.