It's been an exciting week - for me and everyone else on the East Coast.

In the days between a 5.8-magnitude earthquake felt along the coast and Hurricane Irene making her way up the Eastern Seaboard, my fiance and I drove to Cape Cod for our annual vacation with his family. Unfortunately, we're cutting the trip short by a day in hopes of getting out of Irene's way. (Fingers crossed on that one.)

There's so much to do in the quaint little towns dotting the hook-shaped peninsula that hangs off of Massachusetts. In the few years that I've joined the gang up here, we have participated in quite a few of the activities. Of course, a few days working on our tans at the beach are necessary. We've also driven go-carts, toured the Cape Cod chip factory and visited the John F. Kennedy museum.

But aside from being bookended by a couple of natural disasters, this has been a vacation that we will not soon forget. We tried some new things, revisited some old things, got a lot of sun and ate some incredible seafood.

Our first meal on Cape Cod was at Arnold's Lobster and Clam Bar in Eastham, Mass. - a family favorite.

Other than lobster, clams and more menu options, Arnold's has a mini golf course and an ice cream stand attached. Part of the experience is waiting in a line that winds out the door for at least half an hour - a sure sign that the food is good.

On my first visit here two years ago, I ordered a baked potato having been clueless about how decadent and delicious lobster meat can be. After trying a bite on that trip, I wised up.

The lobster rolls (pronounced: lobst-ah rolls) come in warm and cold; hot is drizzled with melted drawn butter and cold is tossed in mayonnaise. They're both succulent and tender, but the warm takes a slight edge. But because I can never seem to remember which is better at the right moment, I ordered the cold one this time.

Here's how it shakes out: a toasted and buttered New England style bun (looks like a slice of white bread folded in half), topped with a piece of crispy lettuce and mounded with fresh lobster meat mixed in a little mayonnaise. All the mild flavors and textures in this sandwich defer to the lobster, which feels pillowy and tastes sweet as the star of the ensemble. For me, chomping on the first bite while sitting outside on a long picnic table is confirmation that vacation has begun.

For our next seafood fix, we tried a restaurant called Moby Dick's in Wellfleet, a town north of Eastham. I ordered the grilled seafood kebab to get the most variety. It's two skewers with alternating pieces of zucchini, red bell pepper, yellow squash, red onion, swordfish, scallops and shrimp over rice pilaf. Needless to say, it was very pretty.

This dish was more elegant than your fried fish platters but less work than cracking, pulling and sucking on a whole lobster. I asked for my kebabs to be blackened, and I was happy to see that they were merely kissed in seasoning to let the natural flavors of the meat and vegetables come through. A little char on the whole thing lended a touch of caramelized crunch too. This meal was light but satisfying and left ample room for key lime pie.

This year, I rented a bicycle. And guess what? I actually got up early and rode it along different bike trails in the area. I hadn't ridden a bike in at least five years, but it comes back easily, just like riding a bike.

The first morning, I took a little bit of a hilly but short ride to Coast Guard Beach, which was ranked in the nation's top 10 by a Florida International University professor's annual survey. His nickname is "Dr. Beach," so I gather he knows what he's talking about. The other days I took flat rides along the Cape Cod Rail Trail that took me along scenic routes of marshes and woods in the crisp and breezy morning air.

I love to eat fish and other seafood, but Cape Cod has ruined me for lobster anywhere else in the country. I'll never have this particular seafood morsel anywhere that's as good as it is here. Indulging once a year and breathing in some of the country's most beautiful beaches makes it all the more special.