An Islander No More

Please allow me a minute or two to recover from my utter "blogger withdrawal" and begin once more by pointing out that I would trade the heat and humidity of Dukes County, Massachusetts for that of the Philadelphia, PA area, primarily Bucks County and Trenton, NJ, in a heartbeat.

After long hours on the road from Woods Hole, MA up Route 28 north (for a rematch with the dreaded Bourne Rotary, which I managed to navigate successfully) and over the Bourne Bridge, across to 195 West over the Falls River into Providence, over the forever-and-a-day passage down 95 South to 278 East over the Tappan Zee Bridge, down the Garden State Parkway and over to the New Jersey Turnpike and back into PA, I am here to announce that I HAVE RETURNED!

I've tried to keep aware of what has been going on a bit, which hasn't been easy since we had such a great time in Katama on Martha's Vineyard over the last week. I tried to scrounge the odd copy of The New York Times and The Boston Globe every now and then, and I've lined up some posting topics that I'll try to get to as soon as possible.

First, though, I should point out how truly special a place Martha's Vineyard is and why it should be treated with care. The island is approximately 20 miles wide, and it boasts a population of about 14,000 or so in off-season which expands to over 100,000 in the summer.

There are no traffic lights on the island anywhere, and there is a hellacious five-way intersection at Vineyard Haven near the upper tip of the island that residents navigate at their utter peril. During the course of two trips (last year and 1998), we managed to get through it without getting tagged by another vehicle (and the added complication of increased moped usage, with the cycles/bikes/whatever the hell they are exactly taking up space on the highway and causing massive backups, didn't help either; a rider was killed on one in Oak Bluffs not far from Vineyard Haven earlier this summer, and there is currently a movement on the island to ban them altogether).

The plant life that springs forward from the island is spectacular. I can remember hyacinths in full bloom eight years ago, and this time around, it looked like the hydrangeas had gone absolutely insane, along with wild roses and impatiens on every corner with any vegetation at all, especially in Edgartown (the "old money" part of the island with wonderful old homes and bed and breakfast lodgings). We spent about a day and a half there when the weather wasn't cooperating (it was mainly dry but overcast for three days - Monday and Friday provided the best sunny weather for the beach).

The highlight of the whole week was probably the catamaran trip from Menemsha (the old fishing part of the island where much of "Jaws" was filmed) to Cuttyhunk Island across Buzzard's Bay above Rhode Island aboard the "Arabella," owned by Hugh Taylor of The Outermost Inn and piloted ably by our captain Croft with fine assistance from first mate Meredith. Croft let the young one take the wheel, and he followed his directions in fine fashion. Hugh met us at the dock when we returned; I was going to BS with him about how much he looked like his brother James, but I could tell how busy a man he was, running the Inn with his wife in high season.

We stayed at the Winnetu, a great inn in Katama with a fine kids program, and they threw a clambake on Wednesday evening, providing a canopy for everyone since the rain that would stay with us for a day or so had settled in. The 1 1/2-pound lobster was delicious along with the other cookout goodies, and the staff made s'mores for the kids afterwards when the magic show was over.

Those are some quick highlights of the trip, and now that we've had this great break, I'll plan to get back to business shortly between restarting the mail and the newspapers and sorting through the heaping pile of laundry. I needed to seriously take myself out of the loop from all of the Bush insanity and refocus a bit (and the first phone message we discovered when we got back was an automated plea from Mikey Fitzpatrick to vote for him...geez, it's summer, dude; isn't it JUST A BIT EARLY to start groveling for votes, especially since you said you'd win anyway and it was just a question of by how much?), and luckily I was able to do that.

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends..."