r/CapeCod

I will preface this rant with this:

I am not a perfect driver. I can get distracted, or may not know every single turn of every single road. I am human!

I have lived here the last 5 years, from ages 30-35. I lived in NYC the 5 years prior. In one single day here, I will encounter more distracted and entitled drivers than I did in an entire week in NYC. And guess what? 75% of the time, it is a MA plate causing the problems.

For example, here are things I encountered today.

1. I’m making a left off of Independence towards Shepley, where they put up the new flashing stop signs (loosely defined new, been up almost a year now). I am stopped. The car in the lane closest to the median stops. Here comes Mr. Lifelong Cape Codder going 40 mph through the stop sign and flips me off as he almost T-Bones me and gestured at ME like I was in the wrong. I can guarantee you his thought process. “The sign didn’t used to be there, I’m not stopping for it we never needed it!” MA plate

2. The guy who drove 15mph at 5PM all the way down 6a to show off his shiny classic car. Great time to do that, on one of the main ways to travel town to town around here! MA plate

3. The truck that tailgated me to the point I could see his pores as I drove a safe distance behind the guy going 15mph on 6a. MA plate

4. Truck driving half on the right side of 6A this morning on my way to work, TX plate (hey look, 25%)

Anyways, I’ve been lurking on this subreddit and felt the need to make this post because these kinds of things happen all. the. time. and it truly makes me wonder if everyone is a narcissist. It’s always the tourists fault! They cause the traffic, they don’t know how to drive, them them them.

I humbly ask, if you are angry reading this and want to tell me to leave, to look in the mirror and ask yourself if maybe you are the problem.

Also one last thing, my god people, NOBODY EVER wants to actually stop at a stop sign around here! Rolling stops everywhere, nobody understands who is supposed to go first. And please stop waving people into traffic, even if you think you are being nice, you are not following the rules of the road.

Bring on the downvotes, sincerely, awashashoretiredofthefuckery

This traffic at the sagamore Bridge is the worst this year than any other more tourist can not comprehend how to do a zipper merge it's wild

Found a lonestar tick on a beach towel at Crosby yesterday.

Ew.

I’m looking to buy a vintage wooden lobster trap. My 101 year old grandmother used to catch lobsters when my mom was a kid and she always had a wooden trap on her deck as a tchotchke. It finally had to be thrown away and I’d really love to replace it. Does anyone know if/where I might find one on the cape?

Saturday (the 4th), perhaps against my better judgment, I took my best friend to the sluiceway in Wellfleet to enjoy the beautiful day. It’s her first time on the Cape. I’ve been coming here every summer for most of my life, as I have several washashore relatives who have lived and worked here year-round since the 1970s. I haven’t been to this particular spot in ~10 years, but because this was my friend’s first time here and she was only around for the weekend, I really wanted to show her.

It’s a hike to get there since I don’t have an SUV that can comfortably drive back roads. On our way there, a group of three blonde girls who don’t seem from around here ask us for directions. They seemed lost and distraught from the heat and the walking, but we were happy to help point them in the direction of a parking lot when they asked. We told them that we hoped they found their friends and that they have fun.

We get there and it’s beautiful. Shortly after we sit down and are enjoying the unique experience of two ponds at once, the same girls we gave directions to arrive along with several male friends carrying a box of bud light. They all appeared to be teenagers, or were fairly young at least. They immediately start looking around in disgust and loudly complaining:

“This is f*cking ret*rded.”
“Where the f*ck are we?”
One of them even shouted dramatically “this is the worst f*cking day of my life!”

Mind you, there are families here with their young children. Famously, there are few places to sit at the sluiceway, so this group is just standing/walking around and continuing to complain. Whatever, we try to ignore it, hoping they will just turn around and leave.

Then, one of the teen’s parents arrives with a dog. At this point, I’m honestly annoyed at the situation and the lack of self awareness being demonstrated. To my knowledge, dogs are not allowed at the ponds for environmental reasons, so I say, “just so you know, you’re not allowed to have dogs here.”

The dad turns to me and goes, “it’s fine, he’s really friendly, I’ll keep him away from you.” I reply and say, “you’re just not supposed to bring dogs here.” He goes, “he’s my service dog.” I say, oh, okay. Then he says “yeah, he’s my fake service dog for my fake epilepsy.” Cool, this guy is just as much of a childish asshole as the group of kids he’s with, go figure.

He walks away for a bit then comes back with the dog, and goes, “There are like ten other dogs here. I’ve been coming here for ten years and have never had an issue.” I once again say, okay, they’re not allowed though. Then his daughter chimes in and scolds “okay, well you don’t have to be such an asshole about it, loosen up a little.”

This group starts loudly talking crap about us and ridiculing us directly in front of us, (one of the teenage guys is whining about how I said it was gross that he said the R word immediately upon arriving), so I start complaining to my friend about how obnoxious this whole situation is, and at this point she wants to leave. I say, let’s try to stay and see if things calm down a bit (obviously a mistake on my part, my friend’s gut feeling was correct). However, the situation clearly isn’t improving, and at this point we’re getting glared at and stared down by the entire group, so we start packing up to leave. As we’re turning around, the girl who called me an asshole goes, “thanks for giving us your spot!” We ignore this rude comment, as we’ve attempted to ignore almost everything else. We turn, we’re walking away down the path, and then one of the girls loudly and with vitriol yells at us, “faggot!”

Both myself and my friend are lesbians, neither of us are “butch” although I guess we’re still clockable as gay. My friend immediately turns around and goes “what’s wrong with you,” and I start yelling something along the lines of “what the fuck did you just say to me? Do you know where you are right now?” I mean, we’re literally two towns over from Provincetown for Christ’s sake. I have NEVER had something like this happen to me here, EVER. I start taking a video of the girl and she’s smiling and asking who I’m going to send it to. Really pathetic and sad.

We finally turn to get out of there and start walking down the narrow wooded path, and run into some of the guy friends from that group. I angrily say “you should really tell your friends not to call people faggot, it’s really rude.” And the guy goes “I think you’ll be alright.” Then, when he thinks he’s out of earshot behind us, he goes “it’s always a fucking Subaru driver.” I was wearing a Subaru hat, common lesbian stereotype. My friend starts crying as we walk away.

While we are walking down the path to gtfo of there, a car pulls up to us. It’s a gay couple and their friend who witnessed the whole thing, were horrified, and also left. They asked if we are okay and apologized, and we commiserated together briefly about how bizarre the whole incident was. If you guys are reading this, we really appreciate you, happy pride, you gave us hope after a really scary and stressful encounter.

I’m not sure why I wanted to share this here but I was just so in shock that people could be so casually cruel. I know crowds are different around the 4th, I typically come in May/June/Aug/Sept to avoid flies, but this was just really weird and surreal to experience on the Cape of all places.

Coming in August because I need some (Atlantic) beach time. Rented VRBO. We don’t want to be shitty guests. I would like to know, is there anything in particular we should avoid doing/saying? (We know not to complain about things like prices and parking). We both work in public facing jobs, so that hopefully isn’t a problem. We won’t be arriving on Friday or leaving on Sunday. We’re coming from MN where it is hot and humid (and often a drought) in the summer, and if one more tourist complains to me about our mosquitoes (unofficial state bird), I might swat them. So I don’t want to be that guy lol.

I know it’s a weird question, so I appreciate any help. TIA.

I was jumped by a group of three men who shouted homophobic slurs at me near their pickup truck outside of The Seal pub in Harwich. Message me if you witnessed the incident or if you have any information.

I didn’t want to didn’t want to deal with the traffic today getting off the Cape. After seeing how many people were on the Cape this past weekend, seem like every house had minimum a half a dozen cars out front. Every place was packed. I can’t remember the last time I saw the Cape like this. But anyway, I ended up jumping in my car last night just before 9 PM. Got home in record time zero traffic.

Let’s hear your nightmare stories. Make sure to let us know where on the Cape you left from. And where you were traveling to. How long did it take you total? Also, how long did it take you just to get over the bridge.

My daughter was driving off the Cape this morning and hit a huge pothole on Service Road in Centerville, causing a flat tire. I drove there and started changing the tire, but was having difficulties due to the jack being on dirt and not pavement. Doug was driving in the opposite direction and when he saw we were having troubles, he pulled over and got a board and another jack out of his truck and helped me change the tire (honestly he did the hardest parts).

Thank you, Doug! There are still nice people in this world.

Any suggestions of where to go for the big USA game tomorrow night? looking for a lively atmosphere and a place to get sum beverages

What are your go-to places for GF dining
on the Cape?

We came down mid day on Thursday. Took a little over 3 hrs, which is double what it would take with no traffic.

I’d like to try and avoid the mad rush off the Cape tomorrow. So my plan is either to leave early morning or late evening.

What do you guys think traffic will be like 9-10am? Or do you think I would need to be on car before 9am to beat the rush?

I’m in mid Cape, South Yarmouth.