Fortnight in the Vineyard

This blog is mainly about (my) life in New Paltz, but occasionally I have to leave the Noop. Two weeks in Martha's Vineyard tends to make me miss New Paltz and to be grateful for what we have in our new home.

Our annual pilgramage to Martha's Vineyard, sponsored by my mom, is actually what got us to move to New Paltz in the first place. Shirra, and later Fiona, and later Emmett, kept asking to move to somewhere with more of an 'outdoors' than New York City. Initially I thought our move from Manhattan to Brooklyn would be enough -- after all, we had a backyard with an entire sixth of an acre to ourselves -- but two years ago, we started to look outside of the City in search of a much more rustic life. I discovered early on that I didn't want to move to Martha's Vineyard, so our search concentrated on towns not too far from NYC, and eventually we ended up in NP. My very early blog entries here will explain this in much more detail, if you're interested.

Martha's Vineyard and New Paltz are both small-town areas dependent on tourism, but that's about all they have in common. Here are some ways to tell them apart:

RADIO
* NP: A lot of country music on the FM dial with a good dose of rock from 90s to present.
* MV: Mostly a mix of soft rock and oldies, plus some religious stuff on weekends.

TOURISM
* NP: Most obvious on summer weekends, when cars from NYC clog up Main St. Since SUNY NP is out of session, the population actually decreases during the summer except on weekends, when it increases by a few thousand.
* MV: This island lives, financially, for the 3 months of summer, when folks from all over clog up all of the parking in any of its 5 towns. Island driving is affected mainly in and around the towns, and this is the case everyday of the week. MV's population swells from 20,000 to about 200,000 each summer.

SIZE
* NP: Pretty small, geographically. You can drive from north to south or east to west in a matter of minutes.
* MV: Quite spread-out. It could take an hour to cross the island.

FIRE!
* NP: Two fire stations, tho activities are almost exclusively carried out from the big building off Main St. Large fires require mutual aid from neighboring towns, like Gardiner, Plattekill, and Highland.
*MV: Each of the 5 towns has its own station. Like NP, the fire fighters are all volunteers. Large fires receive 'mutual aid' from the other stations on the island.

HOUSING PRICES
* NP: Housing is reasonable, tho there is a large range. Apartments can be rented for $800 a month or purchased for the low $100ks. Larger apartments and small houses would run in the mid-200ks to low 400ks. The most expensive houses would be in the range of $1 million to $2 million, tho these are mainly for weekenders.
* MV: There is no longer a middle class in Martha's Vineyard, a fact lamented in all of the island's newspapers on a regular basis. Some can find (and deal with) cramped quarters in some basement dwelling for $100-200k, but most offerings are in the low 400s to the high 600s. Throw in a 4th bedroom or a hint of sand ("just steps from the beach!") and the price will easily breech the seventh digit, and there are a few mansions in the $5-10 million range and plenty for just a bit less. Of course, all of these places are exclusively for weekenders and those who 'summer' on the island. Only a handful of natives can afford a hint of beachfront, and they're the ones who own the few large businesses on the island.

OTHER PRICES
* NP: Fairly normal. Some things are a lot cheaper than NYC (movie tickets: $4, Ben and Jerry's: $3/pint), some are about average (milk: $3/half gallon), and some are a bit pricier (like stationery, since the local store is more expensive than a big chain like Staples). For the most part, prices in our necka are reasonable, and we feel lucky to be living there.
* MV: Ridiculous for the most part, tho some tourist items are quite cheap. But a pint of B&Js is usually $5.60, milk is nearly that, and groceries in general are exhorbitant. Ice cream at a local parlor (Mad Martha's) is $3 for a single scoop in a cone and $4.50 for a double. A tee-shirt exhorting our favorite new coffee place is $24. I think that natives have a way of buying goods at a discount thru the use of some card, but I'm not sure.

SWIMMING
* NP has a few pools and a couple of others nearby. The Moriello Pool is great, and it costs only $130 for the summer season for the whole family. Still, it's not the beach. Of course, I'm not a huge fan of sand-in-the-pants, so I'm not complaining.
* MV: There are some amazing beaches, tho storms and general erosion have nearly destroyed them. We love the Lucy Vincent (huge waves at times) and Squibnocket, but both need passes only available to people who have houses in a specific area. Our hotel provides walk-on passes, so we occasionally drive to the beach or come up with other strategies. My favorite technique is to drop the family off at Lucy Vincent, drive back to the nearby library, and unicycle five minnutes back to the beach.

LOCALS
* NP: I really like the locals in the NP area. For the most part, they are a very down-to-earth group. We have farmers, hippies, blue-collar guys with trucks, teachers, and so on. I'm hoping our minority presence continues to grow, but the place seems pretty open towards everyone for the most part.
* MV: Because of the high prices of everything, only the middle-class and rich find themselves visiting the island during the summer. Therefore, the only poor people are some of the locals, tho we rarely encounter them except when shopping. They really stand out sometimes, showing apparent signs of inbreeding including bad teeth, poor eyesight, obesity, and a distinct lack of fashion. We don't meet too many farmers or hippies (tho they do exist) because most of the folks we run into are the wealthy people here on holiday.

NIGHTLIFE
I'm off to bed. Nightlife in Martha's Vineyard is about the same as in New Paltz: There isn't much of it. In fact, MV is even quieter than NP because 3 of its 5 towns are dry, including the one we're in (not that I care).