Mike's Provincetown Birthday Fest

When I asked Mike what he wanted to do for his birthday, he said Provincetown, MA would be fun. So I booked a hotel and asked him what his birthday goals would be for the weekend. He listed the following:

Put his feet in the sand
Get into the ocean
Eat Wellfleet Oysters
Drink at The Squealing Pig
Shop at Marine Specialties
Champagne for breakfast

We arrived in P-Town at sunset, checked into our hotel, dropped our bags, and headed to the main drag on Commercial Street. We dropped into Pepe's on the Wharf and stumbled right into a table for two overlooking the bay. Couldn't have planned it better.

#BirthdayGoal 3: Eat Wellfleet Oysters

#BirthdayGoal 6: Wake up to a bottle of champagne.

Brunch at Liz's Café with my Jersey friends Kathy and Elisa. Probably the best fried chicken and waffles I've ever had.

Afternoon stroll down Commercial Street and through all the incredible art galleries. The paintings below were by Robert Cardinal, featured in Kiley Court Gallery. The golden hour lighting within them is phenomenal.

Sights and signs from Commercial Street.

More art highlights from Thanassi Gallery. These are so peaceful to look at.

We took a break for a few pints at Old Colony Pub and met up with more friends. Mike looks exceptionally dapper here.

Obligatory tourist photo session with the fake shark.

#BirthdayGoal 5: Shop at Marine Specialties. This place is always an adventure, it's half army surplus store and half weirdness. Mike purchased a new fun, flirty shirt which he later changed into for his birthday evening wear. More on that in a bit.

#BirthdayGoal 3: Drink at The Squealing Pig. The crew had Bloody Mary Oyster Shooters which are a gross thing I was previously unaware of. I had a cider and curry fries.

We pop into another pub and Mike changes into his new shirt for dinner.

We celebrate Mike's birthday (29th) and Elisa's birthday (28th) by continuing our bar crawl. At some point, we realized Mike's friend was from the same small town in Jersey that my friend was from and all kinds of hilarity ensued. Turns out they go way back.

We eventually called it a night and headed back to the hotel to crash.

In the morning, we parted ways with our friends, then Mike and I headed to Racepoint Beach for a beach day. It was picture perfect. #BirthdayGoal 1: Put feet in the sand. I also accomplished a goal for the weekend, which was to fill up a bottle of beach sand for my sand jar.

#BirthdayGoal 2: Get into the ocean. Photo below is post-ocean, which was a tad chilly but not enough to stop a true New Englander. After a quick dip (very quick, the lifeguard station was flying the purple shark sighting flag), we kicked back in our beach chairs for sun, Funyuns, and relaxation.

And then out of nowhere we began seeing whale spouts just a hundred yards off shore. Directly in front of our chairs out in the sea, were a massive pod of humpback whales. They rose out of the ocean, big flukes pointing straight up in the air then slapping the surface or sinking gracefully below. Dorsal fins glided up and over the water. One of them seemed to wave at us as it passed by. They were spread out at ten, twelve, and two o'clock. Whales everywhere we looked.

As if that wasn't impressive enough, a pack of seals swam by! The first one we saw almost looked like a wet black Labrador Retriever going for a healthy swim all by itself. But it didn't have ears or an owner and was swimming way too far out to be a dog. Which of course we realized it wasn't a dog after all, it was a seal. But then we started seeing a bunch of them. They swam by in packs of threes and we cautiously looked after them to make sure they weren't fleeing from a great white.

We stayed out on Racepoint for the whole afternoon watching whales wave at us and seals frollic in the surf. Then we headed back into town for a double scoop of ice cream and some last minutes shopping before heading home.