I Suck At Sandwich

Today's featured stop on the Cape tour for Karen, my friend (Andrea), and I was the town of Sandwich. My BFF (Kerry) opted not to attend the tour today, opting to relax at the house in Onset.

Anyway, the town of Sandwich is located in Barnstable county. As Karen reminded me during our trip today, the name for the county, "Barnstable" is a bit redundant. Breaking the word down... there is a "barn" and there is a "stable". Both words are synonymous with one another. (Look it up.) Thus, Barnstable could conceivably be called "Barnbarn". It was that logic that made me smile on our trip today. For anyone curious, that logic was actually provided by my friend (Marc) while in high school. Like Karen is apt to do, she remembered some of our more sillier conversations from years past.

Regardless, neither Karen nor I have ever been to Sandwich. I guess you could say I suck at Sandwich. It just so happens that Karen was intrigued to learn that a store in Sandwich was decorated in such a way that each room of its house had a holiday theme. (I contested that the store probably did not decorate any of its rooms for Chanukah or Kwanzaa.) Nevertheless, she wanted to go. And apparently, Andrea was quite interested about the store as well.

So off we ventured to Sandwich. Our first stop in Sandwich: the Green Briar Nature Center. What is at the Green Briar Nature Center? Well... the Green Briar Jam Kitchen of course. After all, what goes better on a sandwich than jam? If only there were a peanut butter factory nearby. That would be totally neat.

The Green Briar Jam Kitchen is a museum where visitors can view the cooking process for various canned items like jam. (They were making pickles when we arrived.) Everything there is homemade using these old looking stoves. It was quite interesting to see the old stoves. Karen ended up purchasing some jams, of course.

Located near the Jam Kitchen was the Nature Center featuring a slew of animals (most notably the cute and cuddly rabbits outside), a wild plant garden, and the Thornton Burgess Museum. For anyone curious, Thornton Burgess is a Sandwich author who has written numerous children's books (over 170). Peter Rabbit was one of the characters featured in his books.

Following the visit to the Jam Kitchen, Karen, Andrea and I headed off to the Sandwich Glass Museum. While at the Sandwich Glass Museum, we learned about the history of Sandwich and how its glass came to be famous. Well, I should say that Karen and Andrea learned about the history of Sandwich. The history lesson was provided in an auditorium... complete with actors pretending to be from the time period. Like most history lessons, I tend to zone out. History has never been my forte. I consider myself lucky that I even passed the history course in college with my friend (Kelley). This history lesson of Sandwich was no different... because I pretty much dozed off.

For anyone curious, Deming Jarves started the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company and headquartered it in Sandwich for its shipping ports. The sand in Sandwich is actually not that good to use for glass, so sand had to be imported from of all places... New Jersey. The company prospered in the 1800s. Unfortunately, the company had to close due to a glass worker union strike.

Regardless, I woke up in time for the glass blowing demonstration after the history lesson. It was neat to watch the craftsman create a piece of glass artwork in a matter of minutes.

Anyway, after the Sandwich Glass Museum, the three of us ventured off to the store with the holiday themed rooms. As it turned out... the place was closed for the day. I felt a little bad for Karen because I knew she was looking forward to the place. I guess it just wasn't meant to be today.

Eventually, the three of us headed back to the vacation house in Onset. Andrea soon ventured off to her cousins while Kerry, Karen and I watched the "Sex and the City" movie. Hey, I'm not proud of that fact. Interestingly enough, the movie was not that bad. It was predictable like most chick flicks. I have seen worse.

Karen, Kerry and I then watched some more episodes of the second season of Veronica Mars. As always, the episodes were great!

When Andrea returned, the four of us decided to play Trivia Pursuit: Totally 80s. The game was okay. It basically turned into a game of attrition, to which I was the last one standing who was not tired. The winning question was about Rick Springfield.

All in all, it was a good day for me.