The edge of the world

July 31, 2014

Ok, it may not quite be the edge of the world, but when you start a journey in California on one coast and spend a week driving up the far coast, it seems like you’ve gone as far as you can go.  Until you take a ferry 30 miles farther out into the Ocean.  We had a five hour drive, a scramble around Hyannis to drop luggage and family at the ferry station, return our rental car to the airport, get Dee and Mike’s car to a long-term parking area, and then make it back to the ferry – not to mention the 2 ¼ hour ferry ride.  We again travelled through five different states - New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.  But the payoff was all worth it at the end. 

We are on Nantucket, an island off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this place is amazing.  We may never come leave.  I’m tempted to check for a history teaching job at the local high school, but I’ve been told they have no wrestling team so I don’t think Alex will go for it. 

Coming here really rounds out the trip as a way to remember Grandma Kit.  This is where she grew up, and it’s really cool to see Becky and the kids excited about seeing Grandma’s island.  We toyed with the idea of come here seven years ago on the RV trip, but circumstances didn’t make it very practical.  Becky has two cousins who live on the island, but they are older than she is, and when Becky’s uncle and aunt divorced, Becky and Kit lost contact with the cousins.   So when we looked into the price of hotels on Nantucket and throw in the ferry ride over, we realized that just wasn’t something we could swing at the time. 

Shortly after Grandma Kit passed away earlier this year, her 83-year-old brother Wray also passed.  Becky and Dee went to his funeral at Orca’s Island off the coast of Washington state.  There they reconnected after more than twenty years with their cousin Peter and his wife Allison.  Hearing that we would be on the East Coast for Kit’s interment this summer, they invited us to come stay with them.  They couldn’t be nicer and more welcoming, and Nantucket is beautiful.  They have plenty of room here for us, and the bed that Becky and I are in is literally the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in.

Reflecting on what we have done so far, there have been a lot of connections to Grandma Kit.  Even taking the kids to Disney World was fulfilling the last Christmas present she gave to them.  The Isle of Palms in South Carolina was where she and her husband Bob used to take their young family, and of course, Washington DC centered around her interment.  Being here in Nantucket is just a perfect way to keep feeling that connection to Kit.  We are truly blessed to include this as part of our trip.