martha’s vineyard

Posted by susan on May 7th, 2009. Filed under: getaways.

marthas-vineyard-beach

Martha’s Vineyard is an island off the coast of Massachusetts, south of Cape Cod to be exact. It is most commonly known to be a place where affluent individuals and families “summer,” and I do mean that as a verb. Despite the yuppie stigma, it is definitely a place for anyone to enjoy- even if you can’t buy a summer home. To get there, you can take a ferry from Falmouth, Hyannis, New Bedford, Rhode Island and Nantucket.

It is one of my favorite places.

My mom once told me that the Vineyard reminded her of Ireland. When I went off to study there in college, I discovered she was right.

marthas-vinyard-ocean

See, this is kind of like a mini version of the Cliffs of Mohr, no?

the-aquinna-cliffs

Other than Oak Bluffs, which is a town dotted with Gingerbread Houses and the location of the Flying Horses Carousel (that was for all you Dispatch fans), one of my favorite parts of the Vineyard is Aquinnah, or Gay Head.

This is an area on the western shore and the latter name comes from the 130-foot multicolored clay cliffs that meet the Atlantic so colorfully and happily.  The Aquinnah Cliffs are home of the Gay Head Lighthouse, which was built in 1844. Today it is a tourist attraction and also a site filled with history. An 1852 report on the nation’s lighthouses ranked Gay Head the ninth most important seacoast light, the highest rank of any light north of New York.

gay-head-light-house

The main reason why I love the Vineyard is because it was the location of my first family vacation since I was in elementary school. We vacationed there one of the summers I was in college.

When I was younger, my parents’ had a house up in Maine where we would skate, sled and snowmobile in the winter and swim in the summer. However, once the three of us got into sports and Catholic school, leisurely weekends away were replaced with hockey tournaments, figure skating competitions and then later soccer games and track meets.

On our long awaited trip, we traveled to Gay Head and ate at the Aquinnah Restaurant. Below from left to right is Mike (yes he’s been around that long), me and my dad. From where we sat, we could look out over the cliffs to the ocean.

susie-mike-dad

Below is me and my mom, in between visits to the various gift shops that are up by the cliffs.

susie-mom-in-the-vineyard

We also went deep sea fishing on our trip, which was really fun and surprisingly exhausting. I was probably in the best shape of my life back then and I could barely handle the constant reeling in and out and when I actually caught something, I thought I would pass out. I did make it through and everyone else seemed to do okay too. Below is my brother Patrick, Mike, me and my sister Jenny.

patrick-mike-susie-jenn

I am hoping to get back there someday soon…

marthas-vineyard-dusk

[All of these photos were scanned in and I cannot remember who took them. This last one however, was definitely shot by Mike]

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