I was at our timeshare on Cape Cod – one of the best investments my wife and I ever made – last week for part of the week. We split up the week, though, as Lucky the Aging Wonder Bichon needs a fair amount of attention and the family member who used to watch him for us during our week at the Cape stopped doing so because I didn’t vote for Trump.

True story – got to love family, right?

On Wednesday, the skies were clear, the temperature was in the 60s and it was a perfect day to explore a bit.

It was also an interesting time to be at the Cape. In April many of the businesses that close for the winter are opening back up. Not all of them, mind you, but enough to give you a choice of what to do and where to eat.

Throughout the Cape I noticed several things: quite a lot of “for sale” signs, a fair number of abandoned buildings and the ubiquitous nature of two retail chains: Ocean State Job Lot and the Christmas tree Shops.

We shop at both, especially Job Lot, by the way.

Their presence in town after town says much about the nature of the Cape in my humble opinion. These communities are working class at their core. Yes, there are mansions, expensive resorts and pricey eateries. Plenty of pleasure boats in the harbors and marinas, too.

The comparison can be very odd at times.

If you go to a community such as Chatham and drive along the shore where the beach and lighthouse are located, you see some amazing properties. Outside of Chatham though the communities are much more down to earth. I’ve been told there are people who live on the Cape who view themselves in the same way we view ourselves in Western Massachusetts: we are viewed by the Boston establishment as being the hinterlands. The big difference is folks from Boston come to the Cape to vacation. If they do come west, it’s probably for the Berkshires. The Big E or Six Flags.

I’ve always wanted to do a story about the Cape and how the everyday people survive in an economy where much of it closes down for four or five months. I’ve wondered if the Cape is able to retain its young people – an issue we have.

I’ve wondered about food deserts at the Cape. Not every community has a supermarket, which means there is a fair amount of driving or taking public transit to buy food.

I’m also amazed at the number of homeless people I see in Hyannis. In short the Cape may be rural in many ways with a traditional economy built on the sea, but it has many of the same issues and challenges as land-locked urban areas.

This trip I did get to eat at a place I’d long wondered about – Kream ‘n’ Kone in Dennis. Usually our week has been in November when many places are closed, but this year the restaurant that boasts of the best fried clams on the Cape was open and so I had to try it. It was great.

Of course, our go-to seafood restaurant is Seafood Sam’s, a local chain that features comfortable but no-frills dining and very reasonable prices for very fresh seafood.

And every visit to the Cape must include a challenge to my high cholesterol medication, the Brazilian Grill in Hyannis where servers come to you with skewers of freshly roasted meats for you to try. Yes, there is an extensive buffet that can satisfy the non-meat lover, but I go for the parade of beef, chicken, pork and lamb.

I even got to visit once again the Marconi beach that is part of the Cape Cod National Seashore. This is where, as the National Park Service notes, “On Jan. 18, 1903, [Guglielmo] Marconi staged another world’s first (and a bit of a media event) by successfully transmitting messages between the president of the United States and the king of England.”

Marconi’s accomplishment brought him the title of being the inventor of radio, but in reality the man who made the 20th Century possible, Nikola Tesla, was ahead of him.

There is some irony that the facility used by Marconi was eventually dismantled before the bluff it was located on crumbled into the beach. Still, I liked being at the site of history.

Yes, I’m on a short vacation but I wound up using it as content! That is my curse.