Land’s End

A visit to the Outer Cape provides a real and tangible feeling of venturing to a singular landscape that moves to its own beat.

For some old-time residents, as well as frequent visitors, the designation and dissection of the Cape into four sections—Upper, Mid, Lower, and Outer—is an understandable and sometimes necessary detail for identification. Debating the logic of why the Upper Cape doesn’t exist at the highest latitude of this hooked land mass, or why the Lower Cape spans geography on both the north and south side of our isthmus, is never a means to understanding the valuable monikers that allow one to understand proximity as well as the independent culture of the various regions—two critical factors when making plans that involve travel time and focus of activity within the region. No matter how you slice it, the Outer Cape takes a bit of perseverance to get there. In the rest of the world, “perseverance” would translate to “time,” but on the Cape, a trip to the Outer Cape involves so much more than time, both positively and less positively (with the right outlook, the journey can solidly avoid the characterization of being “negative”). The roads are less competitive, as two lanes replace four lanes—the dead end at the physical end of the land, can result in traffic back-ups all the way back to the more competitive thoroughfares—the pace of life feels slower as well. And then there is the beauty, and here is where the negative moves solidly into the positive, the vistas and landscape are overwhelming enough to cause the most impatient among us to ease up on the accelerator and just drink in the quiet beauty. ...