Hyannis Port – – Kennedy Compound Lane – No Entry
We wanted an easier day today and more or less got what we wanted.
We hoped we could just turn up and play tennis at the local (South Yarmouth) courts and so it turned out. Steve seems to look after the place very nicely and gently, welcoming tourists if they want to pay to play.
The courts are green clay, which we’d never played before. Very similar feel to the synthetic clay we have tried and enjoyed in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
Steve recommended Cuffy’s, so we stopped there for a while.
Rather a strange “mock harbour bazaar” at which Janie eventually splashed the cash on some deeply discounted sports shorts but which has no place to sit down and take refreshments.
The staff suggested ‘the Dunkin” down the street, but my googling found an equally nearby place with a more artesanal look – Three Fins Coffee Roasters. There we took iced coffee, a Danish and a muffin…cos that’s what you do in places like that…and listened to a string of 60s hits by British artists.
Then on to Hyannis Port, on a somewhat bizarre mission to see the Kennedy Compound. The sat nav sort of gets you there, but the no parking signs and the road signs take you away from the compound itself, either to the next beach along or near the “invitation only” Hyannisport Club.
In the end I parked 10 minutes walk away and we walked down, only for Janie to ignore the “Private” sign at the edge of the compound itself and end up being gently removed by a chatty elderly lady in a high viz vest who is paid to enforce the privacy.
Let’s not muse as to whether or not roads and movements of that kind can actually block the right of way for walkers – people in the USA all have guns! The security lady didn’t look as though she was carrying a gun and became very chatty as she walked us back to the slightly more public road. Strange place.
Undaunted, we set off back to Yarmouth, stopping on the way for gas (petrol). “Leave this to me”, I said, for our first ever petrol stop in the USA, and possibly just as well. I studied the petrol pump for some time, musing that the green pump (which would symbolise petrol in the UK) looked decidedly diesel-like in its signage, whereas the black one (which would mean diesel in the UK) looked like it wanted to serve petrol. “Let’s ask someone”, said Janie, landing on an unfortunate, random customer, before I had a chance to go and ask an informed person in the gas station. The poor man had no idea why Janie was asking him “petrol or diesel” questions, assuming that she didn’t know whether our car was petrol or diesel. “Best you read the manual”, he said, trying to help.
Fortunately, someone from the gas station spotted us and came out to assist. The binary oppositeness of the UK/USA petrol/diesel signage was soon explained and understood. The nice gentleman who had tried to help looked enlightened when he realised why we had been confused, sympathising with us, as he had never been outside the USA and realised that he would have been similarly confused himself.
A lesson you only need to learn once.
We got home in time to enjoy just a few minutes on our terrace before it got too cold for sitting out, at which point we strolled up the road to book the local Japanese Restaurant Inaho, for this evening and then retired for a while to wash and read.
Soon our hunger and tempting look of the Inaho place overcame us, so we went and grabbed our table early. The nice maitre d lady had saved us a booth which was a lovely way to try the place. The food was excellent – one of the best Japanese restaurants we have ever tried.
It was very photogenic food – Daisy went a bit mad with her camera and even I took a few.
The atmosphere in there was excellent too. Thoroughly recommended.
Back home for an infeasibly early night but we were both very tired and had packing and a long drive tomorrow ahead of us, so an early night was probably a very good idea.
If you want to see all the pictures from that day…and who could blame you…click here or the picture link below for the Flickr album for that day.
