The Burnzo Diaries: CAPE CODDING IT: A Cape Cod vacation memoir

I was lucky if I could get any sleep at all. It was almost as bad as Christmas Eve. I’m talking about VacationEve. The night before family vacation down on Cape Cod.

We would get up early on Saturday morning. The car had been packed the night before. A family of five stuffed into a 1986 Toyota Camry sedan with the ocean-blue fabric interior, Rusty Jones sticker on that little quarter window located on the rear corner of the car. The trunk was strategically packed so that every inch of space was utilized. Same with the white, Sears X-cargo carrier clamped onto the roof of the car and safely secured with bungee cords. My siblings and I were in the backseat, but we sat on top of our unrolled sleeping bags that were sprawled out across the seats and we also had to ride with our pillows on our laps. Even small areas on the floor by our feet would be packed with little items like board games or hair dryers, maybe a pot or frying pan—things like that.

The Sears X-cargo carrier.

We would try to be on the road before 8am. This way, we would ideally get to “the bridge” before 9am, hopefully before the traffic backup got too bad. And when I say, “the bridge,” I’m talking about the SagamoreBridge, one of the two bridges that you drove over in order to get to Cape Cod from mainland Massachusetts, the other bridge, of course, being the Bourne Bridge. There is only one other bridge that can take you onto Cape Cod, but that is a railroad bridge—the vertical lift “Bourne Railroad Bridge,” to be exact—so you would have to be riding on a train in order to go over that one.

To me, the Sagamore Bridge always carried extra weight with it (no pun intended). What I mean is that it was a bridge I had much more respect for, a bridge I took much more seriously, because it was the bridge my family always went over when we were going to Cape Cod for an actual vacation.

The Cape Cod canal with the Sagamore Bridge in the distance.

As for the Bourne Bridge? That was always an exciting bridge to go over as well, but we only rode over that bridge for day trips to Cape Cod, most likely if we were going to Old Silver Beach in Falmouth for the day.

But the Sagamore? That meant serious business for the Burns family. It meant we would be on “the Cape” for at least a week. I don’t think I can put into words how exciting it was to a) ride over that bridge, all whilst looking down to the beautiful, man-made Cape Cod canal below, and b) going around that initial rotary where there was a shrubbery that spelled out, “Welcome to Cape Cod.” Ok, that shrubbery was actually after the Bourne Bridge—my memory is conflating the two bridges—but, just, you know, stay with me here, please.

After the Sagamore, you then found yourself on Route 6 (aka the mid-Cape highway), which had similar implications as the Sagamore Bridge. That is, the Route 6 highway wasn’t a highway we ever took for a daytrip to the beach. No, it meant we were going much deeper into the Cape, usually as far as Dennis or maybe even Harwich.

At first, it was Dennis and, more specifically, West Dennis. Yes, my earliest memories of going to Cape Cod for a family vacation are from staying in a small cottage in West Dennis on Captain Chase Rd. that we always called the “Murphy cottage” (name changed to protect the owners’ privacy) because that was the name of the family who rented it out to us. More than anything else, I remember the smell of the cottage, which was not a bad smell, but there was a distinct cottage smell, which from that point on in my life became known as “the cottage smell.” I believe this smell results from the moisture in the air getting into the wood of the cottage floors or furniture, something like this, but “smells like cottage” has been a phrase I’ve used pretty much all my life or at least since the mid-to-late-1980s.

The Murphy cottage was about a five or ten-minute walk to the beach, straight down Captain Chase. You’d pass a couple different little motels during the walk and then I seem to remember there being some sort of raft/beach toy store, maybe on the corner of Captain Chase before you crossed Old Warf Road and got to the beach.

We stayed in the Murphy cottage for maybe two years during the mid-1980s and then sometime in the later 1980s we had to, for whatever reason, rent another cottage, which was only a road or two over from Captain Chase (this area in West Dennis was almost like a village with a LOT of roads running parallel with one another and these roads were filled with A LOT of cottages). This cottage was even smaller than the Murphy cottage and all I remember is it had a screened-in porch with a bed that my sister slept in. There were also a lot of earwigs in this cottage, so we eventually started referring to this place as “the earwig cottage.”

One day during the week that we were staying in said earwig cottage, there was some drama just up the road from us. A transformer on a telephone pole exploded because a crow had flown into it. The poor crow got fried and was dead on the side of the road. Sorry, this is a depressing story, but I remember the whole incident fascinated all of us and certainly left an impression on me, a five or six-year-old at the time. Coincidentally, this was actually around the time when I had first seen Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and I thought the strange crow behavior was very eerie or perhaps even an omen of worse things to come.

Fortunately, nothing worse happened, especially nothing like what happens in Hitchcock’s film.

Now, it’s important to note that my aunt, uncle and cousins pretty much always vacationed during the same week as my family and usually stayed in a cottage that was very close to us. During the summer that we were staying in the earwig cottage, my cousins were staying in a cottage on Susan-Ruth Rd., which was, I think, only one road over from us. They always somehow lucked out and stayed in a cottage that was usually at least sliiiiightly better than ours (if not MUCH better), so we would often spend more time at their cottage than in our own. Their cottage on Susan-Ruth Rd., for example, had a cabana-like shed in the backyard that had been converted into a kids clubhouse. I remember my siblings and I hanging out with my cousins in this clubhouse and we all called ourselves “the cabana kids.”

We would usually spend most of the day at the beach, but in the evenings, we would often go to one of the many Cape Cod tourist hotspots for shopping, ice cream or, of course, mini-golf.

As far as shopping goes, there were two stores that we pretty much always went to at least once during our weeklong Cape Cod vacation: Cuffy’s and the Christmas Tree Shop.

Cuffy’s was a clothing store, but it mostly sold nice, soft sweatshirts and sweatpants. There was also a gift section with coffee mugs, salt water taffy, board games and other novelties. Or at least I think there was a gift section back then (the store has since been renovated and there is now a rather large “general store” section with all the gifts, salt water taffy and such). Back in the 1980s, it almost went without saying that you would have to purchase a Cuffy’s sweatshirt or pair of sweatpants sometime during your vacation on Cape Cod.

Cuffy's before the recent renovation.

A photo I took of a sand sculpture outside of Cuffy's circa 2020
shortly before the store was renovated.

As for the Christmas Tree Shop, this store was as much of a Cape Cod staple as Cuffy’s was. It sold all sorts of crafts, home goods, housewares, toys, gifts and holiday items, including but not limited to Christmas items. I remember buying a super-cool Rambo toy kit there (that came with a plastic version of Rambo’s signature Bowie knife along with his iconic red bandana), and I also remember buying a framed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie poster.

One of the Christmas Tree Shops on Cape Cod (the one near the Sagamore Bridge).

The Christmas Tree Shop basically became a franchise in the 1990s and stores began sprouting up in the Massachusetts mainland suburbs. Once this happened, it made going to the flagship store on Cape Cod a little less special. A couple years ago, however, all of the Christmas Tree Shops, including the ones on Cape Cod, had to close due to bankruptcy, so the Christmas Tree Shop is now a store of the past.

Along with Cuffy’s and Christmas Tree shop, a third place we almost always went to for shopping on Cape Cod (especially on a rainy day) was the Cape Cod Mall, aka the Hyannis Mall. In the late-1980s and probably into the early-1990s, the Cape Cod Mall was known to be the biggest mall in the area. Even when I hear the name “Cape Cod Mall” today, I still feel a shiver run down my spine because, back in the day, that name was pretty much synonymous with THE MALL OF ALL MALLS. When you go to the mall today, it doesn’t seem all that impressive, but back in its heyday, it seemed massive. It had all the popular anchor stores (Sears, Filene’s, Woolworths, etc.) and it also had all the usual inner-mall stores (Brookstone, Thom McAn, Record Town, Tape World, B. Dalton books, etc.). Furthermore, there was a food court and, of course, what badass mall would be complete without a cinema as well.

The Cape Cod Mall would be paaaaaaaaacked on a rainy Cape Cod summer’s day. And the traffic getting there on Route 28 would be equally horrendous.

When it came to getting ice cream on Cape Cod, we usually went to a place called Sundae School located on Lower County Rd. in Dennis. I haven’t been there in ages (because I don’t really do dairy anymore, if you know what I mean), but I remember it having some of the best ice cream around. It was homemade, too. Chocolate chip was always my flavor of choice.

And then there was the miniature golf. Our go-to mini-golf establishment was this place in Dennis called the “Barn of Fun” that I think was part of a larger place called the Sea View Playland. Or maybe Barn of Fun was technically the name of the video arcade at Sea View Playland, which was literally located inside a barn. The arcade had the reputation of being world-class with video game cabinets up the wazoo. I don’t remember the name of it, but I remember that we would play some racecar driving game over and over again; you know, it was one of those video game cabinets that had an actual steering wheel that you would use to steer the car. There was maybe even a shifter as well.

This was the Barn of Fun.

The Barn of Fun was also one of those arcades where you could play Skee-Ball and win tickets if you were any good at it. The better you were, the more tickets you would win and then you could use the tickets to purchase prizes. One time, my cousins and my siblings all pooled our tickets together and purchased this awesome plastic California Raisins mug. For years, we would share custody of this mug. My family would keep it for a few months. Then, when we saw our cousins at Christmas or something, we would hand the mug over to them and they would keep it for a few months. At some point, the mug got lost and this makes me very sad.

The only evidence of the California Raisins mug that I could find.
Sorry the photo is so blurry.

Also sad is the fact that Barn of Fun/Sea View Playland doesn’t exist anymore. The main places to play mini-golf down the Cape, at least in the mid-Cape area, are Pirates Cove and Skull Island.

Going to the movies was also a big thing to do while you were down the Cape, at night usually, but also when there was a rainy day and the beaches were unpleasant. Dennis had this shopping plaza called “Patriot Square” with a supermarket but also a cinema. I specifically remember seeing the movie Caddyshack 2 there with my family and cousins, and this night became legendary because my dad could not stop laughing throughout the entire movie, or so it seemed. He literally had never laughed so hard in his life. In hindsight, I find this puzzling, because Caddyshack 2 is NOT a funny movie; the first Caddyshack was the funny one. The sequel is, frankly, terrible (and I actually attempted rewatching it recently to confirm this). So I’m shocked that my dad was laughing so hard at it. We all still talk about that night to this day, though. The night we all saw Caddyshack 2 and my dad couldn’t stop laughing.

All in all, I think I remember a total of about three years of vacationing in Dennis. In the very late-1980s, we made the switch to Harwich where we stayed in a cottage owned by a woman my dad worked with at the time. This place was within walking distance of the beach, but, more notably, it was literally up the street from a go-kart racing track. And just down the street from the go-karts was an outdoor trampoline park. Oh man, I had so much fun on those go-karts! And the trampolines, too! Trampoline parks weren’t commonplace back then like they are now. Neither were go-kart tracks. This was what made Cape Cod even more magical. You had to go to “the Cape” to find a trampoline park and a go-kart race track. Cape Cod was like some sort of fantasy land—it really was.

The beach that was within walking distance of our cottage (I think) was Red River Beach. What I remember the most about Red River Beach and most of the other Harwich beaches was that they had nice long jetties and, in those days, you were actually allowed to walk out onto them. If you’re not familiar, these were the piles of rocks that divided up beach properties (I think) and went straight out into the water about 50 yards or so, give or take, and at Red River Beach it was usually give. We bought simple droplines that we used to fish for crabs in the water holes of these jetty rocks. For bait, we would catch minnows that would swim in schools within the knee-deep shore of the beach. We would use those mesh butterfly nets with the wooden stem to catch the minnows. They sold those nets virtually everywhere on the Cape.

A beach jetty. We would fish for crabs on these.

Using the minnows as bait, we were often successful in catching crabs of all sizes, but one time we brought up our line and realized there was this giant, snake-like thing on the hook. It was a black eel! Gross. The eel only stayed on the hook for a moment, then managed to wriggle itself loose and slither back down into the water, so we only caught a quick glimpse of it. But catching that eel quickly became a top Cape Cod vacation memory, one that was talked about for ages afterwards, much like my dad laughing like a maniac at Caddyshack 2.

Harwich also had a semi-fun downtown to it with a couple notable places, the most notable of which was this store that I’m almost positive was called Cranberries. This was a store that sold beach rafts and other flotational devices, beach toys, the aforementioned butterfly nets, flip flops, gifts, post cards, scented soaps/candles and this may have even been where we bought our droplines as well. For whatever reason, I loved that store, but it sadly got turned into a liquor store, sometime around the year 2006, I believe.

Downtown Harwich also had a place called Cinnamon Stick (a gift shop) and a small (maybe two-screen) cinema that showed decent movies. Oh, and I think there was a Harwich House of Pizza that I don’t think I ever went to.

For the next summer (maybe in 1990 or so?), we rented a nicer cottage in Harwich, not near the go-carts, but still close to the beach. It was a white, two-floor colonial owned by the grandparents of our neighbors back home. For this summer and I think the next summer, we actually stayed in the cottage for TWO WHOLE WEEKS, one week of which was shared with our cousins. I think our cousins would rent for the first week, we would come down and share the cottage with them the second week and then we would stay there alone the third week (or vice versa). I think we basically split the cost of the rental with our cousins for the three weeks, and since we shared one of those weeks, it was kind of like getting a week free. Or a half a week free? Sorry, my math is bad. Either way, it was a win-win situation, because we had a two-week vacation at a discounted price, one week of which we got to spend with our cousins.

Now, I’m pretty sure that this was the year that we discovered the Wellfleet flea market. Oh boy, I loved that place! While en route to a daytrip to Provincetown, the entire gang (my family and my cousins) stopped at the Wellfleet drive-in movie theater where, usually on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays during the summer, there was a big flea market set up in the drive-in parking lot. Back in the day, you could buy used cassette tapes, CDs, used books, baseball cards, jewelry, clothing, antiques, VHS tapes, video games, BB-guns, knives (if you were old enough) and pretty much anything else you could think of. The vendors were all hippy-like and some were even kind of sketchy, but I loved the place.

The Wellfleet flea market.

By the way, the trip to Provincetown didn’t leave as big of an impression on me as the Wellfleet flea market did. Our trip to P-Town had its moments, especially the ride there where you pass by all the sand dunes in Truro, but Wellfleet flea market was a much more interesting place than P-Town, in my humble opinion.

About 20 years later (in 2010 or so), I revisited the Wellfleet flea market with my brother and it was just as fun. Not much had changed except, instead of VHS tapes, there were DVDs, and instead of used 8-bit Nintendo games, there were PlayStation 2 games. I also remember there was some guy in scrubs doing teeth whitening from the back of a truck. Now, it’s one thing to buy some used DVDs or books at the flea market, but I think getting your teeth whitened by some sketchy guy in the back of a truck is something you want to avoid.

Other favorite places to go down the Cape were downtown Hyannisport and also downtown Chatham.

Both places had shops galore, but in the case of Hyannis I remember this place called Kandy Korner that I thought was so great. It was a candy and ice cream store with a very old-fashioned feel, but there were also many gifts, post cards and other novelties that you could purchase there. I remember getting one of those novelty invisible dog leashes at Kandy Korner, which were popular in the late-1980s. I never got any candy at the store because I wasn’t really allowed to eat candy (too many artificial flavors and colors). I probably got ice cream there at one time or another.

Kandy Korner in Hyannis.

The invisible dog leash.

Hyannis also had this awesome used bookstore called Tim’s Books that I really liked, especially in later years. When I was in my early-30s, I found this great copy of Kenneth Anger’s book Hollywood Babylon there. Sadly, Tim’s Books closed its doors a few years ago, I believe.

And how could I forget the Hyannis Army & Navy store? Army & Navy stores were very big in the 1990s. They kind of became an integral part of the grunge era, wouldn’t you say? This was a place where you could get your wallet chains, I believe? I know they sold some skater clothing there as well. As well as skater shoes (Vans, Airwalks, etc.). Doc Martens. Flannel shirts. That kind of thing.

Like with downtown Hyannis, downtown Chatham was another good place to go in the evening after you had spent a day at the beach. There were a couple different ice cream parlors, gift shops, and maybe a bookstore or two. If I remember correctly, there was some sort of concert on the common once a week there that was well-attended.

All in all, we spent many a summers vacationing on Cape Cod. In the early ‘90s (1992-1994 area), my family, along with my cousins, tried something different and vacationed in North Conway, NH. (in the summer of 1992), subsequently followed by two consecutive years of vacationing in Waterville Valley, NH. (summers of 1993 and 1994). Both the North Conway and Waterville vacations were a ton of fun as well (maybe I’ll write about those vacations someday, but I haven’t yet).

For the summer right before my freshman year in high school (1996), my family re-rented the cottage in Harwich that was up the street from the go-carts. But after this year I don’t think we vacationed down on the Cape, at least not for a full week, until 2007 when my family rented a cottage in Falmouth, right up the street from Old Silver Beach.

Old Silver Beach, if you’re not familiar, was (and I believe still is) a beautiful beach with nice whitish sand, very little seaweed, tame waters with small waves, and, at times of low tide, you could often walk very far out into the water because of all the sandbars. Prior to 2007, Old Silver had always been our daytrip beach, a place we went to for a day on Cape Cod (not on vacation), since it was only a little more than an hour drive from our house in suburban Massachusetts.

A photo I took of the Old Silver Beach sunset.

My family rented the Falmouth cottage for three or four years, from 2007 to about 2009 or so.

The year 2009 is significant because it gave me one Cape Cod memory that has nothing to do with a vacation or even a summer daytrip but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention. During this time, my aunt and uncle (that is, a different aunt and uncle from who we usually vacationed with) were renting a house in Bourne that they were living in while they waited for their new house in Cotuit to be built. They hadn’t been staying in this place all that long when my aunt and uncle told my family, somewhat casually, that they thought the house was haunted. I was very interested in the paranormal at the time, so one day in the middle of the winter, I paid them a visit, took my video camera, and shot some footage of the rooms in the house.

It wasn’t until I reviewed the footage at home a day or two later that I noticed something weird on the tape. In one shot, it looked like there was a face looking at me. The face … of a ghost!

I showed the face to my uncle and he was shocked. “Yes, it’s a face!” he exclaimed.

A couple months later, I shot a short documentary at the house where I communicated with the entities via knocks and caught several other anomalies on camera (mostly orbs). The documentary ended up being about 30 minutes long and I called it A Parallel World (you can watch it on YouTube HERE or it's also embedded below).

A Parallel World

In 2013, my family started renting a cottage in Dennis again. This one was on Ocean Drive, a few streets over from Captain Chase Rd. It was a very small cottage and we tried to fit eight or so people inside of it (including two young children), as well as three dogs. I mean, this cottage was literally the size of maybe two or three sheds, so that was an interesting week to say the least. What’s the saying? “I need a vacation from my vacation?!” Hahaha. Am I right, guys? I needed one of those! Hahahaha. Sorry.

For the next summer, we found a new cottage that was a couple roads closer to Captain Chase on Uncle Rolf Rd. It was bigger and could fit more people. We ended up renting this place for several years. It had a nice five-minute walk to the beach or even less.

A photo I took on Uncle Rolf Road's private beach.
This is one of my favorite photos from the Cape.

It was around this time (2014) when I discovered West Dennis Beach, which, to this day, is one of my favorite places to be on earth, especially during sunset. It’s a great beach to walk along, probably about a mile walk up and down the shore—maybe more. It’s very peaceful and not crowded during the early-evening hours. I’ve shot a lot of video footage there (see videos below) and I’ve done much meditating at that beach. I try to go there every time I’m on the Cape for a recharge.

Lifeguard chair at West Dennis Beach during "magic hour."

The only other beach I’ve been to on the Cape that is as beautiful as West Dennis Beach during the sunset is a beach called Mayflower Beach in northern Dennis (i.e. on the Cape Cod Bay side of Dennis). I’ve only been to this beach once, but I was there during magic hour (i.e. sunset) and it was truly breathtaking. Look at this photo I took while I was there:

Mayflower Beach at sunset.

As I write this, it’s been a few years since I’ve vacationed down on Cape Cod and this is partially why I’m writing this Cape Cod vacation memoir: because I miss it. I miss the beach and swimming in the salt water. I miss the ocean air that gets me all energized. I miss the “Cape Cod trees” (you know, those ‘pitch pine’ ones that almost resemble Bonsai trees). I miss the outdoor showers and how refreshing they are, especially when you finish up and the ocean breeze begins air drying your wet body.

A "Cape Cod Tree."

A small "Cape Cod Tree" that looks like a Bonsai tree.

I miss the initial drive over the Sagamore or Bourne bridges, looking down at the boats in the canal below, catching that first glimpse of the “Welcome to Cape Cod” shrubbery when you first enter the post-bridge rotary.

I miss the “cottage smell.”

I miss Cuffy’s, even though I never buy anything there anymore (the sweatshirts are a tad pricey). Wait, I like buying coffee mugs there!

I miss the Christmas Tree Shop, but everyone does, because it doesn’t exist anymore.

I miss the Cape Cod Mall even though malls are pretty much unnecessary these days, what with Amazon and other online shopping.

I miss homemade ice cream from Sundae School. Ok, I’m sensitive to dairy. So … I guess, even if I was on the Cape, I couldn’t go to Sundae School anyway.

I miss mini-golfing, but let me just say Pirates Cove and Skull Island are a tad too commercial/mainstream for my taste (I prefer the indie mini-golf establishments).

I miss playing video games and Skee-Ball at the Barn of Fun.

I miss going to the movies in the evening, watching whatever summer blockbuster comedy Hollywood has to throw at me at the time, laughing hard at movies like Caddyshack 2 that aren’t even funny, but you laugh anyway because you are in vacation mode and laugh at everything.

I miss the go-karts.

And the trampoline park!

I miss fishing for crabs off the jetties of Red River Beach.

I miss catching minnows in butterfly nets.

I miss the Wellfleet flea market and all its sketchy vendors.

I miss the smell of the homemade fudge, salt water taffy and other treats in Hyannis’ Kandy Korner.

I miss the sandbars at Old Silver Beach.

I DO NOT miss the ghosts that haunted my aunt and uncle’s house in Bourne.

But I especially miss walking up and down the shore of West Dennis Beach at sunset time, watching the sandpipers running in and out of the water, looking for worms or snails.

I miss Cape Cod.

But I’ll be back soon.

Rest assured; I will be Cape Codding it again.

…

MATT BURNS is the author of several novels, including Weird Monster, Supermarket Zombies!, The Woman and the Dragon and Johnny Cruise. He’s also written numerous memoirs, including GARAGE MOVIE: My Adventures Making Weird Films, My Raging Case of Beastie Fever, Jungle F’ng Fever: My 30-Year Love Affair with Guns N’ Roses and I Turned into a Misfit! Check out these books (and many more) on his Amazon author page HERE.