We’re off for a weekend in Martha’s Vineyard. Taking a different route this time. Instead of flying, which was over $900 round trip, we drove up to Quonset, Rhode Island, where we were taking a ferry, known (to themselves anyway) as the Fast Ferry. The ferry was scheduled for 1PM, and as usual, I was stressed out the day before about the prospect of getting through New York at around 9AM. But we left at 7 and hoped for the best.
Almost shockingly, things worked out great for the drive. We hit a bit of traffic here and there, but made it in a shade under 5 hours, which was pretty remarkable. I’ve gotta say, driving up I-95 from the Jersey Turnpike all the way up to Rhode Island is not anybody’s idea of a good time. The George Washington Bridge is an impressive and reasonably nice-looking bridge (would probably be beautiful if it weren’t choked with cars), and it is by far the visual highlight of the whole 250 miles or so.
The whole trip was aided by using EZ-Pass, of course, which has eliminated the need to stop at toll booths. It also yields my favorite useless road signs- in the Express lanes, where people routinely pass through at 60 miles per hour, do you really need signs that says “DO NOT BACK UP”? I think the laws of physics prevent that.
So we got to the ferry terminal, if you can call it that, though it was disappointingly not a quonset hut, about an hour before departure. That’s a long time to wait, and it reminds me of the frequent traveler’s dictum, if you never miss a plane, you’re getting to the airport too early. IOW, if you get to the airport so early that you’re always sitting around for an hour or more, you’re wasting time. Clearly there is an optimal arrival time, if you weigh the relative unpleasantness of sitting at the airport versus missing a plane. But it’s tough to predict how long a 250 mile drive around rush hour passing through New York is going to take. I was okay to wait.
Eventually, the ferry came in. It’s a nice-looking boat, a big catamaran. People started to line up, so we joined in early so as to get the best possible seat, whatever that meant. The boat was pretty nice inside, but as soon as we started moving we started to hit some big swells, making it feel a bit roller coasterish. It didn’t bother me particularly, but a number of people started getting seasick, running to the bar to get barf bags and/or running outside. I didn’t actually see anyone throw up, but many folks were looking with like they just had or were about to.
Fortunately, the ride smoothed out after a while and we cruised over to Oak Bluffs, where the crew instructed us all about where to stand and how to line up and get our bags as we debarked. As one would expect, this elicited chaos, with half the passengers scrambling to get their bags before docking so that they would not have to go in the order that they were assigned. We were among the first to board, so we were among the first to debark too, so we needed no such scramble.
Then a taxi van (all the taxis on the island are passenger vans) to the house, which was open and waiting for us. After a bit of settling in, we went out shopping and bought more groceries than I have ever bought at one time. And then we kind of settled into the house. I say kind of because this is not a house for 2 people. This house was designed specifically to handle a large bunch of people, which is what always buzzed around here during what you might call my parents’ glory day. This was from the mid-80’s to late 90’s, when lots of business associates were also social friends and would tend to gather here, along with our families, culminating with a summer-end weekend party for anywhere from 50 to 180 people (not all staying in the house itself).
That ended when my mom started showing ALS symptoms, and it was a kind of slow decline from there. But I don’t want to dwell on that (right now, anyway, plenty of time for that stuff). The point is that the house felt incredibly empty. I don’t think Ronnie and I had never been there before without some other family members present. It was kind of eerie. The pictures I’m including look like things you’d take of an empty house you were showing for sale, but it was as occupied as it was right then. In retrospect maybe I should have taken one with Ronnie in it for scale, but I think you get the idea.
That ended on Saturday afternoon, which is another story.
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