off-season for a reason

maybe it's the economic downturn and the "staycation" trend that's only partially sweeping the nation...but whatever the motive behind this laura holson's nytimes travel section paean to the romance of the forbidding but icily beautiful winter on cape, it's abundantly clear that the author has never actually spent a whole. winter. on. the. cape.

having grown up there, i can tell you that the spring and fall right before and after the tourist season are vastly underrated...but you've pretty much got it right to avoid winter. winter on the cape is much like the rest of new england...gray and cold. if we actually get snow, it looks beautiful for about five minutes, then turns dingy and slushy, then freezes. you might have a couple of freak days in the 40s or even 50s (new england weather: toying with your shit since 1660), which will make it all melt before it drops back down to 15 with wind chill. rinse and repeat. on the cape, you also get the car-rusting salty rawness of the frigid sea air rolling off the shore...so, bonus!

and if i'm going to get self-righteous as well as mocking (and, really, when have i ever shied away from that), her brief portrait of the salty locals (look! they eat oysters, too!) glosses the reality of what happens in an economic crisis when "a drinking town with a fishing problem" overfished its two generations ago, and relies almost exclusively on tourism to sustain its economy.