A caravan of SUVs was snaking through the sand dunes that stretch for miles along the coast of Provincetown at the northern tip of Cape Cod. In one of the vehicles, James Husson-Cote, a local tour guide, pointed to a dip in the sand where a cluster of tenacious scrub oaks and pines had taken root.
Years ago, he said, the whole area was covered with forest. Then the pilgrims came and turned the place into a miniature Sahara. But there was hope for the little oaks and pines that had somehow staked a claim to this desolate waste. “This is a good beginning of a new forest,” he said. “Give it a couple hundred years.”
Inside the SUVs, there was evidence of far more rapid change. Jocelyn Pritchett and Carla Webb had come up from Mississippi the last week of July with their two kids, Ethan and Grace. They were there for Family Week, an annual summer gathering of LGBTQ parents and their kids, now in its 20th year.