Adventures at Plimoth Plantation and the Mayflower by Boy Kyle

As Kyle mentioned, I was not immediately on board for going to Plymouth Plantation. Truth be told I wasn't really in the mood for doing anything yesterday. I think I just got up on the wrong side of the bed.


Another factor is that we went to Plymouth the night before to meet up with a dear friend of mine and the thought of driving back there didn't thrill me. But once we got into town I relaxed and allowed myself to enjoy it. The Plantation has never really held much significance to me so I had a feeling that I wouldn't have a strong reaction to it one way or the other. This proved to be the case but I don't want to give the impression that I didn't like it. I did have fun and it was lovely out but I think the thing I enjoyed the most about the day was walking around the downtown area. There was a festival going on at the waterfront which was a bit stressful since there were hundreds of people trying to squeeze past each other all along the road. We stopped in at the British Beer Company for a quick pint before venturing out again. We sat on Cole's Hill overlooking the Rock and the harbor discussing dinner options and the conversation gradually moved to the thought of living in Plymouth. My initial reaction is that I don't think I would enjoy it but when I stop to think about why that might be, there really isn't any reason. In fact there are plenty of reasons why I would like living there. It has some of the energy of a small Hyannis-like "city" but also the quaintness of most of the rest of Cape Cod. Summertime would bring lots of tourists but it can't be as drastic as Cape Cod. It's on the mainland so there would be no bridge traffic to fight and it's convenient to major highways. I would probably miss the privacy of the house here in Centerville but in Plymouth it would be mine. Soon our stomachs told us it was time to find nourishment so we went to a Texas barbecue restaurant and by then it was apparent that my mood had improved.


The food was decent and the prices were very reasonable. After dinner we made our way back to the Cape. All in all it was an enjoyable day and the company couldn't have been better. Kyle's niece welcomed us back when we got to Mashpee, which was quite adorable. Here is my wrap-up of the day:


Comments, questions or suggestions? Write to us at KyleandKyleBlog@gmail.com

Adventures in Plimoth Plantation and the Mayflower by Girl Kyle

Our original plan was to go to Nantucket yesterday since I've never been there and boy Kyle went there about 10 years ago. The problem with going there was the times that the ferry left Hyannis for Nantucket. We wouldn't be getting to the island until 3 and we wouldn't be able to leave until 8. So instead I came up with the idea that we should go to Plimoth Plantation. It took a little convincing but Kyle finally agreed.

I have a nice long history with Plimoth Plantation and the Mayflower. My mom got a job at the Mayflower back when I was....I'm not sure how old I was but I was definitely young. She worked as a Pilgrim on the Mayflower for awhile and then worked in the ticket booth. After that, she worked at the Plantation as the group tickets lady. I spent a lot of my childhood around the Mayflower and walking all the paths at the Plantation. I was very excited to go back to both the Plantation and the Mayflower. I was really surprised when we got there how different yet similar everything was from when my mom used to work there. The visitor center and the food court and the gift shop all hadn't changed. The difference was in the village. The look of it hadn't changed much since the last time I had been there but we only came across 4 Pilgrims. When my mom worked there, you would come across interpreters all over the place. It was sad to see how quiet the village had become. Besides being sad about that fact, I felt like I was 10 again walking around the Plantation and the Mayflower. Everything smelled and looked the same (minus the lack of interpreters). The thing that surprised me the most was how they left out everything in the houses. They had pottery, furniture, clothing, weapons, books, etc just laying out in the open. There were no cameras so it would be incredibly easy to steal something and go on your merry way. They did a great job setting up everything to make it look like the person living in the house had just left to take a walk. They had a lot of chickens walking around so me and Kyle spent a lot of our time chasing them. They're probably used to it because they didn't run very far.

When we got to the Mayflower, it was really startling to see the lack of things they had set up. I remember there being a lot more props in the bottom of the ship. They didn't have bedding or games or barrels or anything like that lying around like they used to. They had some stuff in the place where they cook the food but there was no one in there cooking. Back when my mom used to work there, there was always someone cooking up something that smelled delicious. My mom used to cook in there actually. Even though we had a great time and it was a gorgeous day, it was really sad to see the huge difference in how the places have changed. It's a shadow of itself and it makes me sad.
I'll end this post with a video of me terrorizing some chickens.

A Little About Girl Kyle

I guess it's now my turn to introduce myself. I've lived on Cape Cod for about 22 years of my life and I feel like that's about 7 years too long. I began my life in the wonderful and classy town of New Bedford so I guess you could say I upgraded a bit when I came to the Cape. Living in one place for so long that offers a very small amount of entertainment for the 20-something crowd is pretty mind numbing. I feel like it's time that I come up with something to do to keep me occupied to I don't go mental.

I've always considered myself one of those people who are really creative but can't figure out what is creative about them. I'm hoping that this venture will unleash something in me that I had no idea was there. There are things that I've wanted to do or haven't been able to do in a long time and this is the perfect reason to go out and do them. And considering I've been stuck inside all summer, (I'm not the biggest fan of the heat and going to bars on the Cape is like walking into an Ed Hardy/Tapout commercial) maybe this will force me to go out into the world and become one with nature.

Please please please give us some ideas. We have a pretty good list at the moment (milking cows, feeding an elephant, para-sailing/gliding) but we would definitely appreciate more ideas. Either leave a comment on any of the posts or email us at kyleandkyleblog@gmail.com

A Little About Boy Kyle

     I thought this would be a good time to tell you a little bit about myself. I'm 20-something years old (I genuinely can't remember at the moment) and live on Cape Cod. This obviously means that finding entertainment requires fighting traffic and crowds during the summer when everything is open (and by everything I mean beaches, mini-golf and bars) or renting some dvds and staying bundled up by the woodstove in the winter. I love all these things as much as anyone but beaches have lost a bit of their allure for me over the years, mini-golf is getting expensive and repetitive, I'd prefer not to develop a drinking problem and there are only so many movies out there worth watching. So when Kyle came to me with the idea of starting a blog together my brain told me that this could be an opportunity to shake things up a little.

     I've found myself stuck in a routine of late and I think that this project will force me, and Kyle as well, to get away from that routine and create new experiences. There are some activities that we've done before but we wanted to make sure it was something we hadn't done in a long time. One that I'm particularly looking forward to is performing at an open mic night somewhere. I was in a few bands with my brother for several years, toured the country with some and then as life caught up to us we begrudgingly put the guitars away and cut our hair. My favorite thing in the whole world is performing music in front of a crowd and I miss it terribly.

     The new experience that I'm looking forward to the most is brewing beer with my cousin. He has been home-brewing since college and I've never joined him. This fall/winter we plan on making a batch of an experimental beer and I can't wait to see how it turns out.

     There are a couple ideas that Kyle came up with that, to be quite honest, aren't really my cup of tea. But even just the fact that they're things that I wouldn't do is exciting to me. I think it's exactly what I want this to be: stepping out of my comfort zone (sometimes leaping) and experiencing new things. Maybe I'll discover something about myself along the way. That's way too much pressure for what is supposed to be a fun and lighthearted adventure.

     To sum up, there will be some big adventures and some small but all of them will be fun or at the very least interesting. If you have any ideas for things you'd like to see us try send an email with your suggestions to kyleandkyleblog@gmail.com and we'll do our best to add it to the list. Remember, we don't make a whole lot of money so try to keep your suggestions somewhat reasonable. While we would love to see the pyramids in Egypt, the Great Wall in China, or the volcanoes in Hawaii, we need to buy groceries too. Tell your friends and keep checking back in.

     - Boy Kyle

Welcome to our Experiment!

I was sitting at work today doing not much of anything when an idea popped into my head. I decided that it would be cool and interesting and maybe fun if me and boy Kyle decided to create a blog together. I ran this idea by boy Kyle and he thought it would be a fun experience but we would need to have an angle. So after much brain storming he came up with the idea that we can do something different and new every week and tell the world about our experience. At this moment boy Kyle is coming up with a list of rules that we need to follow.
Rule 1: It has to be either something we've never done before or something that we haven't done in the past three years.
Rule 2: Everything must be documented with photos and/or video.
Rule 3: There must be at least one new experience per calender week.
We are definitely open to suggestions so if you can come up with anything that we can try then please tell us. (Try to keep it PG-13 though, my mom could be reading this.)
You can write to us with your suggestions at kyleandkyleblog@gmail.com. We plan to start the first week of September. Formal introductions will be forthcoming.
~Girl Kyle