What you can’t tell from this photo is I am actually shrieking because there’s a tiny duckling all by himself, practically running across the top of the water and looking for his mama duck.

She started us with a little light reading. I learned quickly that you don’t ask stupid questions about the text.

After that, she’d had enough and decided it was time for us to get out of the house.

I selfishly wanted to stop for a few photos and some tickling before we left.

At last we stopped screwing around and headed out to the zoo.

Not all of the animals were out, and the ones that were didn’t seem terribly motivated to do anything interesting. It was still a little cold, I guess.

Neither of us was terribly impressed by this car, which was designed to look as if it had crashed into the lion paddock. I think I as fretting over how dirty it looked, and Ruby was already feeling a bit dubious about the lion.

When she first saw him, she said, “Lion! Rawr!” with that little growl she does. But as he moved closer and closer to us, she began frantically shaking her head “No” and burrowing back into the stroller. We rolled onto to over things.

Not sure what’s wrong with this guy’s eye.

Sorry about this next one, Dad.

By then it was getting pretty late, so we stopped off for the main event: playground equipment.

She was really excited about this slide… in theory. The fact that it was enclosed kind of freaked her out. So we did the only thing a person can do in such a situation: accompanied her.

She was a natural on the horse and even used it as an opportunity to work on her pronunciation.

After the zoo, we headed to Dorchester for some food. We discovered that she doesn’t like spring rolls, but does like vanilla ice cream. Thank god we figured that out.

By the time we finished, it was well past her bedtime, and I was ashamed when I received a text from Jenny as we drove home asking whether she’d gone to bed quietly. Nope. She was awake in the backseat checking out the skyline. But she did go right to sleep when we got home, and we collapsed onto the couch for some TV before deciding that 9:50 was probably a reasonable bedtime.

The next morning, she slept until 6:30, then did that snuffling that kids do (and we all feel like doing) when we have awakened but don’t quite feel like getting up yet. I dressed and lay on the covers listening and contemplating what on earth I could do to amuse her for a few hours. At last she woke for real and we got her dressed and headed out for a walk.

We visited Starbucks and had a chocolate milk (and a latte). She said “Hi!” to some passersby, explained repeatedly that that thing is a dog, and informed one gentleman that her chocolate milk was hers. Then we got back in the stroller and took a nice long walk through Arlington. She particularly enjoyed watching some kids play soccer. By 9:30, I decided to call in some reinforcement and woke Yen.

We agreed that the park was probably a good way to eat up an hour.

Here she is tallying the number of times she’s gone on the “big slide” (her term).

Updating the count.

Finally about the time I started seriously dreaming of a shower, she seemed to wear out too.

After lunch, we packed up.

And with the exchange complete, Yen and I headed home as DINKs again, a state where you can do whatever you like whenever you like: we napped.

After the nap, of course we talked about how different life would be if there was a little person around all the time. Much, much different of course. I think it’s made far harder by not having a childproof house (Jenny is able to put Ruby in her room to play knowing that she’s 100% safe), but of course also we don’t know her routines and neurotically think that it’s our job to entertain her 24/7. Still, that nap felt awfully damned good.

But we’re having this strange prolonged spring, and we decided to rush out to give it a shot before Memorial Day comes and the place fills up with tourists in unfortunate shorts.

Because it’s spring, you can imagine how happy Yen was to discover all of the flowers. You’re going to see a lot in this post, and I apologize for wearing pink during this trip. It makes for a particularly feminine experience reading this, I think.

What I like about the Wellfleet Sanctuary is the variety of terrains in such a small area. You are in a pine grove, you walk out on a boardwalk to the sea, you follow the edge of a pond, and of course you trek through fiddler crab villages.

We even surprised a couple of white-tailed deer who had probably been munching on the salt grass.

You know I love a good boardwalk, and we found one by the pond. I had skipped that section during my previous visits figuring that if I’m so close to the ocean, I could skip the pond. You’ve seen one pond, you’ve seen ‘em all, right? I suppose. But this one had some good wildlife in it. Not that Yen counts as wildlife. I think he’s pretty much domesticated at this point, though I wouldn’t rule out a feral streak.

Lots and lots of bullfrog tadpoles.

Because it’s an Audubon property, there was a section of bird feeders. Full of chickadees as usual, but this jerk was taking advantage. Of course he wasn’t on the Squirrel Buster brand feeder.

We sat for a while in a bird blind, but couldn’t see anything. It was a pleasant spot, though.

Then we finally got to the beach. I am pretty sure that in this photo, I wasn’t contemplating walking out into the water. But you just never know.

The arrangement of this sanctuary is such that you go in big loops and keep ending up back at the visitor’s center. Which is nice because you can use the bathroom and check out the chickadees before setting out again.

On the way in, we’d noticed a cemetery with particularly nice trees. After the park, we headed over there before getting ready for dinner.

This was baffling to me. Apparently prickly pears are native on Cape Cod? Jenny, please don’t pick the prickly pear by the paw. When you pick a pear, try to use the claw!

Dinner that night was at the Mews. Yen tried venison for the first time and discovered he likes it – better than beef, he said. I declared it “organlike” and refused to have further samples. We both agreed that the Wellfleet oysters were terrific (as usual).

Next morning, we headed back into Provincetown to find some breakfast. Even though it’s a month away from the opening of the tourist season, we found quite a lot in attendance.

More interesting to me, though, was the National Seashore just past town.

As we left town, we noticed that if we kept going on this same road, we’d end up in California. Eventually.

Next up we visited Great Island. There were a few things that specifically do not recommend this hike. First of all, we saw a lot of dead things. Which of course can be interesting. But after the sixth bird, we started to wonder what was going on. Then we discovered this dolphin. Interesting, but…

Then there was the fact that much of the hike was over loose sand. That’s murder on the quads, I’m here to tell you. At least the second half of it was over a tree-covered dune, and so a little more hard packed.

Well, and it was pretty out there.

Exhausted after all that, we decided to finish the day with a little lighthouse viewing.

So another great mini vacation (without having to use up any actual vacation time). We liked it so much that we’re going to take Ruby next weekend so Jenny and Brent can go see it for themselves. Seems like something a person ought to do before she moves back to the Middle, eh?