When you make lodging arrangements at a non-chain hotel or motel through an online service- hotels.com as an example- in a distant place of which you have no current familiarity it has been my experience that you quite frequently wind up surprised when you check in- sometimes in a good way, sometimes not.  Yesterday when circumstances- a credit card transaction at Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee and two plain old fashioned that was declined, which led to the discovery when I called Wells Fargo that the card had apparently been compromised the previous day when I stopped for breakfast and had been run up by $3,000 or so- required that I scramble to reserve lodging somewhere so that I had a fixed address at which I could receive a Fedex package from the bank, I wound up having just that happen to me.

Provincetown- P-town– Massachusetts shares with Key West, Florida the longstanding reputation for being the center of the gay scene on the Atlantic Coast.  This goes way back to a time long before the current widespread acceptance.  I have had a few openly gay friends over the years and a few others who had never come out, but my exposure to any ubiquitous gay cultural environment was nil.

Until yesterday, when I found myself in a hotel lobby conversing with a number of really friendly men (in a nice way), all of them seemingly fascinated by a guy dressed in black spandex and polyester wearing shoes with cleats on the bottom that made this just wonderful “click-click-click” sound when I walked.  It was fun, and was repeated at the hotel’s continental breakfast bar this morning.

It appears I am staying in the premier gay hostelry in P-town.  I was personally invited tonight to the “Underwear Party” in the club, which happens to be in the basement of where I’m staying, seen in the picture above but I probably won’t go, as my stock of good-looking bicycling underwear is woefully short.  Cool to be included, though.