I’ve long said I’d go anyplace if a local wanted to show me around but even better if the place is beautiful. So we felt very lucky to spend a day touring this beautiful island with a local and even better a local-by- choice who years ago picked the island village of Vineyard Haven as the place where she wanted to live when school is out (she was a teacher) and retire.
The weather was grey and foggy so we couldn’t see the water until the fog lifted after a few hours. But the fog added to the other worldliness as we drove along winding roads in the woods and beside sand dunes where the beach and ocean was obscured by the gloom.
L. drove us down island (east) and up island (west), around west Chop and East Chop, to places with Native American or English names, through the classy village of Edgartown with its stately white and grey shingled homes, and funkier Oak Bluffs, with its rows of little Victorian painted lady cottages surrounding the gathering pavilion of the “Martha’s vineyard camp meeting association” a religious community since 1835.
She drove us to her favorite seaside fish shack ( in menemsha) and pointed out her favorite shingled mansions on sprawling grounds and the headstones of famous writers and journalists (William Styron, Art Buchwald, Mike Wallace) in a graveyard with old peculiar monuments.
It was fun to be here so off season, among 20,000 year round residents on an island that swells to 100,000 in the summer. Yes, fog and gloom, shuttered shops and estates with shrouded shrubbery, but empty roads and locals at one of the few restaurants open. We ate pizza and Cobb salad at Rockfish in Edgartown.
The weather suddenly cleared our second day here, with bright sun, blue sky, shimmering water, 60 degrees. we joined L for her morning constitutional in Oak Bluffs with its pretty town green and boardwalk along the water.
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TakeBetsywithyou 