Nantucket: Same State, Different Country

We got back yesterday from our first anniversary celebration trip to Nantucket, a tiny island right off the shore of good ol'Massachusetts. We figured it would be an easy, uncomplicated yet good place to escape our day to day routines. I expected it to be pretty in that standard Cape Coddy ain't-the-beach-great kinda place. I am surprised and happy to report it is a pretty fascinating place to visit. And now for the photos.

We took a ferry over from Hyannis, a pleasant two hour ride (more on that pleasant factor later for the return trip). Upon arrival, I snapped this shot of the harbor area. Based on the picturesque level we were already hitting, Nantucket was doing pretty good.



From there, we passed a million flower boxes. I guess this town takes them very seriously -- they were everywhere and all of them were gorgeous. We walked 4 blocks from the ferry to our Centre Street Inn, a 13 bedroom house on a quiet side street.

On Saturday, we rented bikes and took a trip over to this lighthouse, which turned out to be right around the corner from our B&B. Mr. Right always says he would love the life of the light house keeper. I'm never sure if he's serious about this or not as I would last about two days at the most.

Mr. Right and I travel well together. I'm always looking for the best farmstands and Mr. Right loves to visit breweries as he has made his own beer in the past. Happily, we found a farm and a brewery on the same street a few miles from Nantucket Town, so we had a good bike ride out to visit them both after the lighthouse.

We also stumbled upon a local landmark, the oldest house in Nantucket. It had a gorgeous herb garden in the back of which I could bore you with another dozen photos so I'll let this one suffice.

At this point we had seen quite a bit of the island and lo and behold, the sun came out so we headed off to one of the gorgeous beaches and then out to dinner at a brand new "ceviche bar" called Corazon Del Mar, where we had a great chat with the owner who waited on us from the raw bar area. After living in New England now for 10 years, Nantucket is one of the friendliest places I have visited.

Sunday was our daytrip day -- another bicycle ride 7 miles from Natucket town to a second tiny little village named Siaconset but pronounced Sconset. The Nantucket Film Festival was going on that weekend so there were movies playing everywhere, and the occasional celebrity sighting (did you see Ben Stiller? he just left this cafe!) and the strangest part of all was arriving in Sconset and seeing something strange yet familiar looming over the town's tennis courts:

Yes, friends, our celebrity sighting was The Stay Puft Marshallow Man. For real. It was the 25th anniversary of the movie, so they thought he should come over for a visit. We didn't get his autograph.

From that point on, our trip became a even more surreal. You think you're in a tiny quaint New England island, and then suddenly you're riding your bike through the African Serengeti. And there were lions.

We were at a loss for words upon spotting this little family on a distant hill as we biked through the cranberry bogs. Who would have thought we would spot the rare Cardboardus Fakus Lion while vacationing in Massachusetts? It was a startling sight.

Surprised and amazed, we biked on (and on and on, it was a long bike ride of seven miles back). And then once again, we seemed to have moved to another part of the globe. Out of the misty gloom (the our visit), there arose a windmill. Who knew we'd see lions and windmills and, well, inflatable movie stars all in one weekend? We're still recovering from that, and the 14 mile round trip bike ride.

I'll leave you with a few lovely shots of the town and a strong final recommendation to visit the Nantucket Whaling Museum when you go the island. Poor Mr. Right had to drag me in the place (oh joy, a whaling museum, I said), and then he had to pull me out the doors to leave as I was so fascinated by the history and art created by the people involved in this incredibly profitable and incredibly brutal industry. Nantucket was really a fascinating place to visit. If you're wondering why the photos stop there, the weather got really bad and then because of the wonderful weather we had a ferry trip ride that induced some, shall we say, sad tummies in certain bloggers so we won't spoil the visit by going into further detail. Otherwise it was an absolutely wonderful mini vacation!

I Heart Mr. Right (and Anniversary Cake)

I've been looking forward to this anniversary for what feels like months and months now, for lots of good reasons. Of course celebrating our first year of marriage is a big deal. And we planned a fun getaway weekend to Nantucket! However, the moment of big anticipation for me was the small one-year anniversary cake that our wedding cake baker includes as part of the package. I'm a huge cake fan, and I really loved that part of our wedding last year. Going to cake tastings was one of my favorite parts of all that crazy wedding planning.

The bakery does the same design as your cake, so we had the seashell motif again. I fell in love with their seashell cakes early on in planning as something really unique to this bakery; most bakeries make seashell themed cakes with large white chocolate seashells attached to the cake. Our bakery does frosting seashells. I know it's a small difference, but it really sold me on this bakery even though they were much further away from our Plymouth wedding site. Finally, because you are so distracted on your actual wedding day, it was fun to get to eat cake when you could relax and enjoy it, which Mr. Right and I had the chance to do this weekend. The filling on this one is orange grand marnier as I wanted to try it out. I liked it, but I was glad we used lemon on the wedding day.

I'll get in some photos of our trip to Nantucket in the next post, but hope you enjoy a little taste of our cake! Actually, we still have about 1/2 of it left, so feel free to stop by for an actual taste sometime!