LAST OF WINTER FEAST
BY DON DOUCETTE
PLYMOUTH
Following a winter seasonal break, the Lobster Hut in Plymouth, Massachusetts opened for business this week all bright and shiny for the new tourist season.
We made a day trip yesterday for their good seafood. Plymouth shone in the bright sunshine including winter warmer temperatures. The town wharf was void of the customary crush summer tourists while the harbor front was quiet and as usual, filled with the familiar lot of seabirds and including one small commercial boat crew in rubber waders who brushed and rinsed the boat gunnels following a session of local sea harvest.
We had planned this trip for several weeks as winter cabin fever was getting the better of us and what better time to kick winter in the butt than with a New England seafood celebratory feast in a world class tourist destination, void of the tourists.
LOBSTER HUT
We had arrived early for a handy car park space near the door as the familiar dining area was fresh and cheery, we being the first customers for the day – the flashy traditional blue neon sea wave display above the order counter said it all, good eats, fun space, and a wraparound view of famous Plymouth Harbor while the masts of the Mayflower Two made an historic statement and poked up further on.
Satisfied, we then made a slow tour through the Plymouth business district and noted that it is unusual to pass through an intact town center with little hint of vacancy. Very refreshing, indeed.
Whitehorse Beach further on takes the brunt of repeated nor’easter coastal storms as that localized geographic location seems always to show evidence of weathered disarray and cataclysm.
And then out to the Manomet Point headland which affords a rare view of entire Cape Cod Bay including Plymouth itself. On display before you is the entire geographic scene of the local Plymouth Pilgrim saga in full view are Provincetown-Wellfleet, First Encounter Beach at Eastham, Aptuxet Trading Post slightly out of view, Cape Cod Bay itself with the imaginary exploratory sailing pinace and Plymouth Harbor itself with its protective barrier sand spit and up shore, the South Shore of Massachusetts. Know it all, close your eyes, imagine and there it is, actual history alive before you outside a bottle.
And what better way to celebrate the final days of winter than a homeward drive through the seasonally dormant and lovely ice-free cranberry bogs of Plymouth/Carver, a bog world of singular winter cranberry hue and gently flowing waters.
Don Doucette
“Ten Mile River Rambles”