day 13
plymouth rock, and beyond!

"Well, not to offend a monumental part of this nation's heritage, but that was bull shit." -k.
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Plymouth Ratings:
MayFlower II: 8 out of 10
The Rock: 2 out of 10
The Gift Shops: 3 out of 10

Claim to Fame: Landing of the MayFlower back in the day. The new ship, the Mayflower II was sent over to the United States from Britian in 1957. It was the Brits way of saying thanks for helping in WWII.


Hong Kong Import Toy of the Day

Avenue X's Playlist:

In the Still of the Night
Under the Boardwalk
I Want to Stand by You on the Mountain
My Little Surfer Girl
Run Around Sue
Dancing with My Baby
Stand By Me
My Girl
Why Do Fools Fall In Love?


Pay special attention to the boy in the lower left. Kids never lie.
A Public Service Message:
Moms, don't let your babies grow up to be this.

Plymouth Does Not, In Fact, Rock
Sept 8 - The day was full of potential. We had escaped the evil clutches of Winter Island and headed for the safe coven of Salem. Did I say coven? I meant haven. We had about 2 tonnes of laundry to do, and luckily, during a brief explanation about the old town hall during the walking tour two nights ago, we'd spotted the Salem Laundry Drive-In. We'd also heard that there was a fabulous breakfast place somewhere in Salem. Guess where it turned out to be? About 50 steps away from the Laundromat. Kismet.

We popped the laundry in the machines and popped ourselves into Sam's Sandwich Place. This guy has more awards than Eminem. He's been voted Best Breakfast, Best Dinner, Best Coffee, Best Bacon, Best Atmosphere, Best Waitstaff, and our favourite, Best Cheap Eats. And it's well deserved; he's not just printing them up on his Hewlett Packard.

America bonds over breakfast. There's something about a diner that brings out the best in people. We met one nice man who filled us in on everything we missed in the first 30 years of his life. Super nice guy. Super nice kid too. Good luck with the guitar lessons, and the thesis.

Once the laundry was done (yay! good smells, not bad smells), we jumped in Mel and headed for the Cape. By the way, Mel is doing very well. He's recovered from his "surgery" in Thunder Bay and only acts up when he's going uphill, in overdrive, between 95 and 105 km/h. A definite improvement.

One of the things we're always up for is a festival. One of Kev's favourite foods is the scallop. You can imagine our glee when we spotted the banner for the 32nd Bourne Scallop Festival!!! This event was especially joyous because for the past week we've been seeing signs and posters for all types of events we'd love to go to. But each of them is almost exactly a week later than the day we're in that town. But not so with the Scallop Festival. It was today! Oh, the luck! I am as giddy as a schoolboy!

Mel has never turned around so fast. In a matter of minutes we were parking a few blocks down from the second largest tent we've ever seen. "That's the second largest tent I've ever seen," remarked Kevin. We bought two entry tickets and one scallop dinner ticket.

I'm not quite sure what we were expecting. We talked about it afterwards in the car. We had hoped for Scallop Themed Games, Giant Scallop Contest, Scallop Burlap Sack Races, Get Your Picture Taken With The Giant Scallop In Old West Costume, Skelly the Scallop from the animated TV Series, and maybe even a Miss Scallop 2001 pageant. I mean, wouldn't you expect such things? It's really too bad that the only scallop-related item in the whole darn Fest was a scoop of fried scallops for dinner. The rest of the Festival was a combination of cold war amusement rides and small town trade show. We're thinking that it's time we got into the Theme Festival industry and turned things around.

We reached our campground at around 6pm, just enough time to take a drive into Provincetown at the tip of the Cape for some evening entertainment. It soon became apparant that we were of a minority in the community. We picked up a pamphlet on Provincetown that states "in the summer months, it is the exuberant playground of the gay community...". We can clarify that this is, in fact, true. Not that there's anything wrong with that.


Editor's Note: You have probably noticed that, despite the title and photos, we have failed to mention anything about our visit to Plymouth Rock in the main body of the page. This is because there is nothing to report. There was a rock, but, I mean, come on. You hear the story of the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock, and you say wow, they must have been starving at sea and then they saw this huge rock jutting out of the water, and they rejoiced and knew they had found the new world, and split a Coca Cola with the natives, etc. etc. Turns out it's just a rock. A little one. We might have been able to lift it.

Here's what we think: We think tourists kept coming to Plymouth saying "Where's the rock? There was supposed to be a rock!" until one day, an enterprising pilgrim descendant just chose a random rock, built a shrine around it and said "there's your stinkin' rock." So, in the words of that pilgrim, if you go to the top of this page, there's your stinkin' rock, and we'll call it a day.


rides from russia...

Witness the glee...

the amusement...

the captivation...

the departure.
more photos in the archive...

Current Location
(get out your push pins)

Plymouth, MA

Next Stop: Cape Cod

see the full map...

Today's Weather:
HOT. AGAIN.

Daily Stats
Distance:300.4km
Gas: $0.00
Loads of Laundry: 3
Ice Cream Cones: 1
Purchased at: Binky's
Flavour: Cookie Dough

Sleeping Quarters
Paine Campground

Site C33. Not bad. Nothing out of the ordinary, but certainly heaven compared to that last outhouse of a place we were in.

Cost: $20.00

Bkfast: 
Sam's Sandwich Place
Salem
K's Order:2 Blueberry Pancakes
Egg Over-easy
Coffee
A's Order:Good Coffee
Home Fries
Bacon, Toast
Cost:$9.50
Dinner: 
Scallop Festival
Bourne
Shared:Scallop Dinner
inc. fries, roll, coleslaw, ice tea
Cost:$10.00


© 2001. Kevin Beimers and Aimee Lingman. Be there festival, be there fun.