Tag: Cape Cod

Beachy Keen

South Carolina’s heat and humidity are quickly moving the dial to “broil” – as they always do this time of year – so my wife and I will go with our most dependable coping mechanism: travel to places other than South Carolina. Technically that’s not quite true because one of those destinations is still South Carolina. Doesn’t matter. The goal is to find temperatures closer to the “bake” setting, where the air movement qualifies as a breeze. Both conditions can be found, of course, at the beach.

I consider myself fortunate to have grown up near a beach.  Others may counter by saying the mountains are more desirable, or the desert, or the shores of a pristine lake.  To each their own.  For me, an upbringing of Pacific Ocean sand and surf turned the calm of the coast into a part of my DNA.  I thirst for the beach several times a year.  And in the United States alone, I have 650 choices.

Mauna Kea Beach on Hawaii’s Big Island

Inevitably, 10 of those 650 beaches are rated as “top”.  The so-called authority on the subject is a guy nicknamed Dr. Beach.  At first I scoffed at the notion that one person could choose the ten best from hundreds, but this doctor takes his medicine seriously.  Dr. Beach has identified fifty criteria (fifty!) to evaluate beaches, including water warm enough to swim in, sand clarity, presence of pests (like mosquitos and seagulls), and the size of the ocean waves.  He even rates the surrounding noise level generated by humans.

To further solidify his credentials, Dr. Beach disqualifies locales threatened by pollution, erosion, or out-of-control seaweed.  He “retires” beaches that have reached the top ten too many times since he started his lists (in 1991).  Finally, Dr. Beach has visited every… single… one… of those 650 beaches.  He may be obsessed with his subject but I’d say he’s a bona fide authority, wouldn’t you?

Caladesi Island State Park in Clearwater FL

On his list for 2026, Dr. Beach prescribed four in Hawaii, three in Florida, one in Cape Cod, and one in the Hamptons.  His tenth selection, coming in at #7, is right here in South Carolina.  Whew, that was close.  After all, he could’ve picked MY beach and then me and the good doctor would be having a serious conversation.

As you know, the problem with top-ten lists is exposure.  Something or somewhere great suddenly becomes headline news and everyone wants a piece of it.  Next thing you know that thing or that place becomes too popular, and no longer resembles its former wonderful self.  With all due respect to Dr. Beach’s “retirement” strategy, once something becomes “top-ten” we’re not quick to forget about it.

Cape Cod gets busy in the summer months…

I’ve been to a few of Dr. Beach’s top choices for 2026.  Maybe not Coast Guard Beach in Cape Cod, but just about every beach on Cape Cod is bucolic.  Maybe not Caladesi State Park in Clearwater, Florida but I’ve dipped my toes in the sugar sand and warm waters of a beach in Clearwater.  I’ve been to Poipu Beach on the island of Kauai, Hawaii twice, for my honeymoon and for a family reunion.  I’m happy to see Poipu ranked as the #1 beach in the United States this year.

Poipu Beach in Kauai HI

I’m even happier to see my two favorite beaches not ranked in the top ten (or anywhere near it) this year.  One is on the West Coast and one is right here in South Carolina.  One is big and one is small.  Both have easy access to the quaint shopping of a nearby village.  And both have the kind of views where walking, riding bikes, or simply staring out at the sea never gets old.  The names of these beaches are…

Nope.  Sorry, no big reveal.  Not even the tease of a photo.  There aren’t a ton of you readers out there but it only takes one to make my beaches go viral, and then what am I going to do?  Find another couple of beaches?  Uh-uh, no way.  Go find your own beaches.  You have 650 to choose from.  And God forbid Dr. Beach ever ranks mine in his top ten.  If that happens I’ll report him to the “surf board” and demand they pull his license.

 Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “Hawaii and Florida top list of best U.S. beaches…”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Agony or Ecstasy?

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

On a first visit to The Netherlands earlier this year, our plan was to traverse the quaint canals and bridges of Amsterdam, stand in the shadows of Kinderdjyk’s working windmills, and learn more about the country’s wartime era, perhaps through a stop at the Anne Frank House. I also looked forward to a field of their famous tulips, and Dutch treats like stroopwafels, poffertjes, and bitterballen.  Sure, I ticked the boxes on several of these items, but I was also blindsided by a group-tour-captive stop at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. 8,000 artworks covering 800 years of Dutch history (in what felt like 80 different rooms)?  Not my idea of a delightful morning in Holland.

I’m not what you’d call a “patron of the arts”, though I’m about to contradict myself.  I love a classical performance by a symphony orchestra.  I’m drawn to the theater’s foremost stage productions (Les Miserables comes to mind).  I even enjoy the occasional visit to a museum, provided the subject is specific and of my choosing (ex. Amsterdam’s Dutch Resistance Versetsmuseum).  But endless rooms of paintings on walls and free-standing sculptures behind glass?  As the Dutch would say, nee bedankt ik zal slagen.  No thanks, I’ll pass.

Here’s where I contradict myself a second time.  As I type this post I’m sipping morning coffee from the mug in the photo.  The mug is a souvenir from my “captivating” visit to the Rijksmuseum.  The painting on the mug is called “Children of the Sea” (1872), by Dutch artist Jozef Israels.  Go figure; I was able to blow past the throngs flocking to the Rembrandts and Vermeers and van Goghs; yet a small artwork in the corner of Rijksmuseum Room 118 captivated me enough to take a little piece of it home.  I probably spent as much time in front of that painting as I did the rest of the museum.

Jozef Israels’ “Children of the Sea” (1872), Rijksmuseum, The Netherlands

Naturally I had to learn more about “Children of the Sea”.  When I returned to Colorado, I read up on Jozef Israels.  Not only was he “… a leading member of a group of landscape painters known as the Hague School…”, Israels was “… the most respected Dutch artist of the second half of the nineteen century”.  Do I know how to pick ’em or what?  Maybe I have a little art appreciation in me after all.

“Children of the Sea”, as you might expect, offers a deeper message than a group of kids playing on the beach.  Their simple clothing and toys hint at a life of poverty.  The eldest child is quite literally carrying his family on his shoulders.  The boat suggests the rigors of life at sea.  From that perspective, I find the painting even more enthralling.

Anton Mauve’s “Morning Ride along the Beach” (1876), Rijksmuseum, The Netherlands

Adjacent to “Children of the Sea” in Rijksmuseum Room 118, I also enjoyed a moment in front of the artwork shown above.  It is called “Morning Ride along the Beach”, and I mistook it for another Jozef Israels masterpiece.  Instead, “Morning…” was painted by Anton Mauve, another Dutch painter of the same era (and Hague School).  “Morning…” provides a contrast to the harsh existence of the poor fishermen of the time, by focusing instead on the “well-to-do bourgeoisie”: horses, elegantly dressed riders, bathing cabins – all on a pastel-colored sunny day.  No souvenir mug with this one, but equally compelling to the eye.

Caravaggio’s “The Calling of Saint Matthew” (1699-1700), Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome

Admittedly, the Hague School paintings weren’t the first artwork to stop me in my tracks, nor were they the last.  In my college year of architecture studies in Rome, the Renaissance-era paintings and sculptures were as impressive as the cathedrals that housed them (I could write an entire post on the stunning chiaroscuro works of Caravaggio).  Case in point, I was so taken by the life and work of Michelangelo I read all 700 pages of Irving’s Stone’s fictional biography, “The Agony and the Ecstasy”.

John Dowd’s “Provincetown Summer” (1997), Provincetown, MA

         

 

As for my latest artwork pause, my wife and I visited Cape Cod last month, all the way out to Provincetown at the tip.  One of Provincetown’s pier-side shops sold tiles of local artists’ paintings.  The tile above (left) – John Dowd’s depiction of a nearby Provincetown Cape house in 1997 – sits on our fireplace mantle now.  The photo above (right) is how the painter’s subject looks today.

Someday I would love to return to The Netherlands for more adventures, but I assure you my itinerary would not include another trip to the Rijksmuseum.  However, I can’t claim I wouldn’t pause on the sidewalk if I walked past the museum’s massive entrance.  After all, in Room 118 there’s a very small painting, utterly captivating to this non-patron of the arts.

Some content sourced from The Netherlands Rijksmuseum website, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.