Middle of the Busy Season

It's full-on summer here in Wellfleet. People everywhere, restaurants mobbed, tons of kids at the beach and all the business owners hunkered down in summer mode. We have a number of friends who own restaurants, we see them only when we go eat at their establishments. Other friends we sometimes bump into when we go to the local theaters (movie or live), which is about once a month. We make noises about getting together for dinner or something, it doesn't always happen. Everyone understands. Winter is for socializing with our friends.

The population difference in our town between winter, when only the year-round residents are here, and summer, when all the 2nd home-owners are here is approximately 3,000 vs. 17,000. Add to that the transient visitors - those who are staying at motels, B&B's or renting cottages - and there are probably 20 - 24,000 people in Wellfleet on any given day in July and August. It's kinda crazy and certainly it's easy to loose sight of things and start grousing about all the extra people in town, but let's face it, the summer tourists are the only reason this town still exists. Nearly every year-round resident who is not retired owes their ability to make a living in some way to tourism. We all know this, but sometimes the sheer number of people and the unrelenting sameness of the days (no such thing as a "weekend" for us in the summer) can make us a bit grumpy. It becomes an art to keep that to ourselves - part of the skill set one must develop as an innkeeper.

Thankfully all our guests since the "incident" have been lovely and interacting with them has been a pleasure, but August does tend to bring a certain type of vacationer to our town. There is an undercurrent of tension in this type, and they seem to be in a hurry - for what I'm not sure. It puzzles me when I see people who are on vacation leave a restaurant in a huff because their food isn't coming fast enough. What's the rush? And where do they think they're going to go and not have to wait to be seated?

Occasionally we do get guests here who seem to try to pack a week's worth of vacation activities into two or three days. Usually they're mid-twenties and either live or work in large cities. If they seem open to it, I'll suggest they pare down their to-do list somewhat and try to relax. After all, who wants to get home from a vacation needing a vacation?