Friday October 5, 2012. I picked Anne up at Middlesex County College at 4 pm after she was done with the afternoon's duties and we headed to Sandwich, where we stayed the night. Traffic was quite bad, what with the long weekend traffic, so we didn't get there until 10:45 pm.
Hotel: Sandwich Lodge and Resort.
Saturday October 6. We met up with Joe Jr and Jessica, and took the 10:30 am Island Queen ferry to Oak Bluffs. Taxi ride to the house we would stay at cost a "whopping" $12, a result of the fare regulations, no doubt. Joe Jr inquired about a trip to Menemsha, a town about 18 miles away, and that trip would cost $58, go figure.
After we settled down in this cozy house, we walked into town (about 1.5 miles) and had lunch at Slice of Life.
Joe Jr and Jessica rented bikes, and we took the bus, and we ended in Edgartown about an hour later. It is a nice area with some expensive homes. We climbed up the lighthouse, which is relatively short.
While the young ones biked back to Oak Bluffs, Anne and I took the bus (No. 13) to Vineyard Haven, it is a working town. We got off the bus and got back on to meet up at Oak Bluffs.
We had dinner at Linda Jean's, a local diner. The dish I had (baked fish) was actually quite good.
Rental: 216 County Road.
Sunday October 7. Joe Jr and Jessica returned the bikes and rented a 4-door Jeep Wrangler, which had an expectedly smooth ride compared to the limited number of Wranglers I had ridden in before. We drove to Menemsha, stopping for a short hike along the way at Menemsha Hills Reservation (got a little lost). Menemsha is a small fishing town, with a couple of restaurants serving simple "take-out" food. We ordered from Larsen's, the stuffed scallops and crab cakes were mostly fillings, but well-seasoned. We stopped by the East Chop Lighthouse along the way. Somehow most (if not all) lighthouses looked the same on the island, and there are several of them.
We then drove back to Edgartown, and took the Chappy Ferry to Chappaquiddick, notorious for the incident that most likely derailed Ted Kennedy's presidential dreams. It is a sparsely populated island. There is a lighthouse that we couldn't get to, among the obstacles are a $180 fee, also no one wanted to deflate and inflate the tires on the Jeep, even though if any vehicle could do it, this one could.
Dinner was at Red Cat in Oak Bluff. Pretty good food at reasonable prices.
Monday October 8. Joe Jr wanted to avoid Cape traffic, so we took the 9:40 am ferry back to Falmouth. I had to take a conference call at the Pier, and it was quite cold. Skype on iPhone worked quite well, though.
While Joe Jr got a head start back to Boston (turns out it wasn't necessary, traffic was light), Anne and I drove around Falmouth and Woods Hole looking for (what else) more lighthouses. We had lunch at Stone Loven. Simple and inexpensive, quite good, though.
We took a long detour to avoid traffic on I-95, and got home at about 7 pm.
