Fantastic Getaway!
Written: Feb 28 '00 (Updated Jul 26 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The feeling that you are totally away from "the real world."
Cons: Takes careful planning and a fat wallet to stay there.
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| sarahgutch's Full Review: Block Island |
Travelling to Block Island, for me, is like a trip back in time... deep into the richest memories of my childhood.
It's a place so close yet so far. From my home in NJ I could conceivably leave at about 5 in the morning and make the 9 o'clock ferry from New London, CT, spend about 5 hours on the island, and return via the 4 o'clock ferry and return home after dinner on the road. But that wouldn't make for a very enjoyable visit.
One of the nicest ways we travelled there was by sailboat. My Dad, an expert captain, always makes "The Block" one of the 1-2 day stopovers on a New England cruise. The harbor is always accommodating and clean, provides amazing 360 degree views of the sky at sunset, and in the morning there are several vendors who ply their pastries or a newspaper by motorized dinghy. If you sail there, you have knocked out one of the big disadvantages of finding a place to stay on the Island. A few years back, even our U.S. President and the First Lady couldn't find a room in season!
If you want to stay, you need to make arrangements through the BI Chamber of Commerce. Most rental houses are let out by a lottery, I think in January, for which you need to register the previous season. There are also B&B's for a 3-night minimum, but again, you need to call early... as much as a year in advance.
My last visit there, and the first for my husband, we didn't even try to find a room on the island. We drove to Mystic, CT, and stayed in a lovely B&B. We had a fresh seafood dinner on the docks of New London and were early to bed so that we could rise with the sun the next morning and have lots of energy for our adventure!
The ferry ride is about an hour and a half. The magic starts about half way across the Block Island Sound, if you sit up top at the front of the boat. The rumors start... "I see it!" "No you don't, it's too early." "Yes I do!" I peer across the seemingly endless grey waves, through the mist... maybe there is a faint horizontal creamy-white streak... "YES!" It's there. Ever so slowly, rising from the mist, the sandy bluffs coalesce and rise further. It really is there, after all!
The last half hour on the ferry passes quickly. I scan the top of the bluff, for a flag pole (actually a converted boat's mast) which marked the property for Captain and Mrs. Short, both long since passed away, but I look anyway out of habit, and remember the fresh raspberries Mrs. Short brought to the house where we were staying when I was a young girl.
I remember my first "corn fritters" at the Short's. I kept asking "what's a fritter?" "what's a fritter?" I didn't know if it's something that I would like. The grown-ups just kept saying "a fritter's a fritter," and you know what? They are the best! Every once in a while I get out my Block Island Cookbook and whip up a batch for my kids. They love them.
Memories of Block Island. For two week vacations during my 7th, 8th and 9th years, my family stayed at the private home of Fred and Eleanor Lacey on Cooneymus Road. Our family legend is that, if my sister had been a boy, she would have been named Adrian Cooneymus (after Adrian Block, the Captain who settled on the Island in the 15th century, and Cooneymus Road where she was conceived). The Lacey's house and property are still there, and available as a rental, but too pricey for my pocketbook.
I remember visiting the General Store down by the ferry, and my mother buying up the rack of post cards with a picture of friend Fred Lacey, surf-fishing in his "waders," and accompanied by his trusty English Bulldog, Cammy.
I remember games of croquet in the yard, typically littered with rocks and anything but flat. The topology of the island has been compared to that of Scotland. A result of the powerful carving forces of the glaciers during the last Ice Age, the landscape is the perfect example of "hill and dale" as it rises and dips dramatically. Rocks and boulders are plentiful, and supplied the raw material for the many rock walls which traverse the island, many dividing properties, and many others meandering hither and yon, around or through swamp and pond. I don't know if it's true, but I heard that if a slave completed a rock wall from one end of the island to the other, he could earn his freedom.
I remember my Mom finding a meat grinder in Mrs. Lacey's kitchen, and going out to the wall and picking the bright orange hips from the wild beach roses which ringed the property. Grinding the hips, cooking them down with lots of sugar, packing the sweet fruit stuff into jars, and enjoying Rose Hip Jam throughout the year. There's nothing quite like it.
I remember a box kite, running away into the wind. The string rolled right off the stick, and my Dad and Mr. Lacey went after it. My first lesson on the vegetation on Block Island. Nothing taller than grass grows without stickers. They returned, with the kite, but also with bloody scratches up to mid-thigh, which Mom and Mrs. Lacey had to nurse as the grown men howled.
I remember stories of giant snapping turtles. Mr. Lacey had seen one on the road outside, and took a shovel to it, chopping off its head. One summer, my Mom stood crying at the kitchen window looking out at the pond. A turtle had grabbed the head of one of the swans and held it under water until it drowned. Its mate circled the pond for a few hours, then flew away, never to return.
Did I mean to scare you away from this wild place? Maybe... then there will be room for me to stay for a while. Unfortunately, the years have brought developers gift shops and restaurants to the Island, which makes it particularly crowded near the harbor, but it also makes day-tripping pleasant.
You can bring your own wheels on the ferry, or you can sprint less than 100 feet to the bike rental shop, hop on a rented bicycle or moped, and cover the island in a matter of hours (get a map and bring a sandwich). My husband's first trip he hollered at me, "Where are we going so fast! I thought this island is small! I thought we were on vacation!" As I huffed and puffed up the hill out of town, I knew where we were going... I crave the wildness.
On the way west, we make a turn and I see a familiar pond with an even more familiar house right alongside the road, and in the back of my mind I can hear my mother's voice, singing "Smilin' Through." That's the name of the house (a favorite subject of generations of BI pencil artists), and that's the name of the song, which was written long ago by a Block Islander. My mom knows the melody and words of just about every song written, and this is one of my favorite scenes filed in my memory--riding our bicycles through the picturesque vistas, passing by "Smilin' Through" and my mom singing the song.
We stop on Cooneymus Road, a break in the vegetation most people would miss, climb down a muddy path and fill our empty water bottles with spring water trickling out of a pipe stuck in a rock decades and decades ago. The clear running water provides the perfect environment for a field of watercress, which is free for the taking in early summer.
Continue to the end of Cooneymus Road and leave the bikes as soon as you can't navigate through the sand. Once you get to the beach (Aaaah the sound of the bell buoy!) you wonder at all the colors of the rocks. Granite, left by the same glaciers that formed this beautiful island, worn to the shape of multicolored eggs by the surf.
This is where it's great. What's missing on this beach is the people. Last time we were there, one other couple was there. The rocks don't make for an easy stroll on the beach, but it's a neat place anyway. As kids, we would pick up the rocks, looking for ones with a stripe that went all the way threw. These were "wish rocks," which we would throw back into the ocean, making a wish. Pick you way down closer to the ocean and you can find snails clinging to the surf-beaten stones, and starfish of different colors moving oh-so-slowly under the foam.
If you prefer a sand beach, head north from Old Harbor to Crescent Beach. It's clean and gentle for young families.
Be sure to stop for a break at the cemetery and look at the gravestones. You will quickly start to recognize some of the old names of the island, and be amazed at some of the dates and stories engraved on them.
Some people never leave the Old Harbor area and are very, very content... and deservedly so. There are lots of places to get a nice meal, many with live music.
Lighthouse buffs will get their share of famous, historic ones to visit. The North light is open as a museum and very informative, and a nice bicycle trip of its own out to the narrow tip of the island. The Southeast Light was moved away from it's precarious position at the edge of the bluffs a few years ago. I saw a movie about it on PBS a few years ago that was very interesting. The lighthouse was up on its "train tracks" ready to be moved, and we were looking at it from a distance and wondering how long it would take, remarking on the powers of the ocean which have eaten away at the bluffs over the years, which made the move necessary. A tourist commented that it was too bad, that maybe a "nice ground cover" would protect the bluffs from the ocean waves. ;-)
If you want to save parts of the island to discover on a later trip, head back to Old Harbor early for some ice cream at Aldo's or a wonderful meal at the National Hotel. Relax on the porch and bask in the ocean breezes. Wish for a miracle so that you can stay another day or week in this magical, wild place.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
sarahgutch
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Member: Abbie Slaman
Location: NJ
Reviews written: 42
Trusted by: 22 members
About Me:
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? --Nick Lowe
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