Where We Went

We were able to park in the back of the museum, and it was easy to check in since we bought tickets online.

There was a room about RJK SR, life on the Cape for the family, then a 100-year timeline of JFK. Upstairs, there was a 20-minute documentary about JFK visiting Galway, Ireland in 1963.

Downtown Hyannis. We had time to kill before lunch, so we walked around downtown Hyannis since we already had free parking behind the museum. We popped into a few of the shops and walked up and down the main street area.

Because I am who I am, I stumbled upon a used book sale for the Hyannis Public Library. I wasn’t sure about going in at first, but Josh was like “go in!” So I did and left with 6 books (part of the series the show Bones is based on) for $12. 

Parker River Beach. We stopped here after dinner since it was right across the street and had free parking (probably since it was after 5:00 p.m.). No one was set up on the beach but a few other people were walking on the sand. I wasn’t sure if we’d end up at a Cape beach but I was happy to just walk along the shore.

What We Ate + Drank

Breakfast: Made at the Airbnb. Nothing fancy, just scrambled eggs, toasted English muffins, and yogurt with strawberries.

Dinner: Skipper Chowder House. We sat up on the top level that overlooked Parker River Beach across the street. Our waitress was super nice and asked us if either of us had any food allergies; we don’t, but that was the first time I was ever asked that at a restaurant, and I feel like that’s a pretty good way to start out.

I got a watermelon lemonade rum drink, and Josh got a beer (I forget which one). For dinner, I got a fish sandwich, and Josh got a buffalo chicken sandwich.

(Also: the wait staff’s uniforms reminded me of the uniforms they wear on Below Deck for service.)

Other Notes

We experienced the Great Water Outage of 2025! On Sunday, when we got to the Airbnb, there was a letter from the town on the fridge saying they would be doing water line repairs and would shut off the water from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. We made sure we were up early enough to eat breakfast and get ready before the water was shut off. When we got back in the afternoon, the water was turned on early around 2:00 p.m., so that was one less thing to worry about. (We knew couldn’t be mad about that since we had no control over it, and thankfully it was only one day where we were out exploring for most of the time.)

We were planning to go bike riding on Tuesday and wanted to grab a six-pack of water bottles from the store to bring with us. We’ve done it in Maine when we go to the beach, so we thought it would be easy enough. Nope. There’s a ban in all 15 Cape Cod towns on single-use plastic water bottles. BUT they still sell seltzer, sodas, Gatorade, etc. in single-use plastic water bottles. How is that any different? Our options were metal cans or paper boxes of water; we opted for two large metal cans with twist-off tops.