When I asked what that meant, Allie elaborated: ``The lighthouses, the old homes, the pretty villages, the sand dunes. It's just what New England should look like.''
So with our daughters, we headed for Cape Cod, about 70 miles from Boston.
The dunes -- around Provincetown at the Cape's tip -- are protected as part of Cape Cod National Seashore. Art's Dune Tours take families on bouncy buggy rides on trails approved by the National Park Service.
Our guide, Rob Costa, shed light on both the natural and human history of the dunes, identifying beach plums and rose hips. He also pointed out the isolated dune shacks -- without electricity or running water they are shacks, not cottages -- where the likes of Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams and Jack Kerouac vacationed, letting the sand and sea air be their muses.
The dunes have a Mojave Desert-like quality, with patches of grass and brush dotting the landscape like freckles on a redhead. To stress the environmentally friendly nature of the tours, Costa says, ``We drive very slowly on marked trails that the national seashore provides for us, so as not to trample the dunes.''
Both Allie and her older sister Trisha loved the views, the cascading hills of sand going on and on. Allie, however, who once got her bicycle stuck in the sand on a beach, later confessed her fear that the dune buggy would become bogged down the same way. Happily, there were no such problems this time.
JOKING MATTERS
When I told my daughter she'd hear lots of funny jokes on the dune buggy tour, Costa responded, ``Lots of jokes, yes. Funny, I don't know.''
Quoth Costa: ``The wildlife here includes white-tail deer, nonpoisonous snakes, turtles, coyotes and bear. And one time a passenger got out of the vehicle and was chased by a bear but we wouldn't let him in since we won't take anyone with a bear behind.''
Ba-dum-dum.
Actually there are no bear on the dunes. When the weather is balmy, the Cape Cod National Seashore is the place to be -- although south Floridians might find these beaches better suited for human polar bears. In fact, my wife and I bet our daughters a small wager that they wouldn't run into the icy Atlantic in May. They took us up on our dare -- perhaps a bad omen for the future.
Stay on land and you can avail yourself of more than 10 miles of bicycle trails winding through the trees and marshland, as well as footpaths snaking their way along the sand and through forests.
Of the many self-guided walking trails, the Atlantic White Cedar Swamp Trail best illustrates the variety of the Cape's landscape. When tromping past tall pines and young black and white oaks, it may seem as if you are 50 miles inland. As the dirt and sand path becomes an elevated boardwalk, the Atlantic white cedar and mossy, stagnant water will signal your approach to the swamp -- in reality a glacial depression that filled with fresh water about 1,800 years ago.
A singular bit of American history occurred on the national seashore here more than a century ago. Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the world's first wireless transatlantic message from South Wellfleet in 1903 -- in his day, this a feat as momentous as the emergence of the Internet 90 years later.
A small scale model of his wireless station marks the spot. Don't expect to see Marconi's complete original station, though. A few ruins jut out from the sand but most of it was destroyed after it was deemed obsolete in the years after World War I.
It was Trisha who marveled that fairly modern history happened just a few miles from the spot where the Pilgrims first landed in 1620 -- present-day Provincetown -- before sailing on to Plymouth.
GAMES PEOPLE PLAY
At night, the crack of the bat brings families to the games of the Cape Cod Baseball League, the nation's preeminent summer collegiate baseball league and setting for the movie, Summer Catch. About a quarter of current major leaguers played in the league, including Barry Zito, Frank Thomas, Darrin Erstad and Jason Varitek. Admission to all games is free.
Baseball might be America's pastime, but for a look at more Americana, head to Heritage Museums & Gardens. Kids can do everything here from ride a carousel with original hand-carved horses to eyeball the cars of presidents and movie stars.
Located in Sandwich, the 100-acre complex also showcases toys that provided entertainment long before the creation of the computer mouse (or even Mickey Mouse) and Native American handcrafts -- intricate beadwork, pottery and sculpture.
An operating Dutch-style windmill built in the Cape village of Orleans in 1800, with sails resembling Paul Bunyan's bed sheets, has been relocated here and provides both a lesson in wind energy and a novelty for the eyes.
About 20 miles west, facing the town green in Yarmouthport, is the home of artist and writer Edward Gorey, whose name is familiar to kids who have read his slightly macabre A-B-C book The Gashlycrumb Tinies (``A is for Amy who fell down the stairs. B is for Basil devoured by bears'').
Gorey loved cats; a trio of Felix the Cat magnets is attached to his refrigerator and Gorey's comfy couch was reduced to tatters by his five real cats. He was also fond of bats and elephants; notice the toilet fixture that Gorey transformed into an elephant-shaped end table.
Several of Gorey's original fine-lined pen and ink illustrations are displayed, along with copies of his tomes such as The Doubtful Guest, The Glorious Nosebleed, and The Epiplectic Bicycle.
Other places to take kids? In East Sandwich is the Green Briar Nature Center, former home of children's author Thornton W. Burgess, where visitors watch jams and jellies made using 100-year-old methods.
The Cape Cod Children's Museum is in Mashpee. The Woods Hole Science Aquarium, with its collection of marine life, has free admission while the Cape Cod Central Railroad passes by cranberry bogs on excursions from Hyannis to the Cape Cod Canal.
Those wanting something more active can rent kayaks or canoes, or let professionals play captain on harbor cruises and whale watching trips.
And it's all very New Englandy.
