Nantucket

And thus these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing from their anthill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like so many Alexanders.

--Herman Melville

I friend I made while working at the CFTC, Rich (he worked and still works elsewhere), lives full time on Nantucket, an island off the south coast of Cape Cod.  I'd never been there, so I let him know I was coming.  I flew there on a 9-seat airplane (a bit scary!) and took a ferry back to the mainland at the end of the day.  He and his family spent the day hosting me, showing me around the island and treating to me to a few nice places to eat, including one of the best restaurants I've ever been to (more on that later).

Rich's wife a bit wryly noted that many people think Nantucket is sort of "too cute" and I understood what she meant.  All the building are made of those wooden shingles, so everything is matchy-matchy.  But I appreciate that everyone makes the effort at architectural uniformity.  I hate that in new housing developments, but that's because those are completely devoid of personality or any real reason for looking exactly the same.  On Nantucket, it's historically consistent and there are enough individual variations that the homes are not exactly the same.  Not to mention, it sounds like those wooden shingles can withstand the really harsh weather in a way many other building materials can't.

Too cute, or just cute enough?

Much of the day was spent putzing around, chatting, strolling, etc.  Another friend of Rich's (and mine, really) were also visiting Nantucket for a few days, so they were with us for much of the time.  We visited the museum on the island (er... the Whaling Museum?  The Nantucket Museum?  That's what I get for waiting over two weeks to write about it!) and it was pretty neat.  It felt like a continuation of what I'd started learning around other parts of New England and the Canadian Atlantic Provinces.  I mean, I hadn't learned about whaling before, but I'd learned about the general history of the area and boats, etc.  And I like it when the "themes" of places flow from one place to the next.

The place we went to for dinner was really great.  It's what anyone would call "fine dining," but it's on the beach.  And I mean, the tables are literally in the sand (except for a few on the deck) and it's normal for people to dine or to serve in their bare feet.

The grown-ups.

Maybe the neatest part of the place is, being right on the water and the beach, is that kids can go play while their parents eat.  Well, not just kids... anyone, really, but a lot of adults outgrow the desire to be buried up to their necks, so the kids probably appreciate the sand more than the grown-ups.

Here was the view from a few feet away from our table.  I couldn't catch the sun touching the horizon because of the clouds, but I like this photo anyway.  It's not every day that the sun gives off a "cool" glow (as in, color palette) like it does here.

So that was my day in Nantucket.  Not a whole lot was done, but it was really relaxing and I had a really nice time building my friendship with Rich and Nolan and getting to know their families too.