My favorite way to travel is to someone. Beauty is in the eye of the person who loves, and what better method for cutting to the heart of a place than through the perspicacious perspective of a child of that place?

This past August, I re-met Cape Cod, that supremely popular portion of Massachusetts famous for attracting throngs of respite-hungry tourists.

Raised on the Jersey Shore, I generally feel I’ve seen the beach. Nothing new. Except, of course, there is always something new: sunset colors warming the slow waves over our toes, a diverse collection of sober revelers, singing around a fire in the sand, something about faith, humility, and togetherness.

And Provincetown . . . well P-town is unique. My Jersey childhood had me picturing this oft-mentioned resort town as one with wooden board walks dried ashy by salt, lined with arcade/casinos competing for attention with booming game soundtracks and the ping! of coins dropping.

My Boston Pride experience inspired me to expect dudes in short-shorts with that strut. Yet, with its quaint sweetness, superb galleries, and narrow, semi-urban feel, P-town strayed from my expectations.

The biggest shock was the Provincetown Public Library.

Small town libraries always have something interesting going on. Few, however, pack the sort of surprise that, in theory, could one day sail away. Crash right through those walls and down to sea.

I was so impressed by the library’s holdings, a half-scale model of the Rose Dorothea Schooner completed in 1988, I barely searched for what have come to represent, to me, markers of a solid community resource.

I guess, sometimes, it’s okay to be swept away.