block island biking beach and best cheesecake ever

This Friday Nancy, Lauren and myself did a day trip to Block Island. We boarded the 8:10 high speed ferry from New London with our backpacks and bikes, and in little over an hour we were pulling into Old Harbor.
Once we retrieved our bikes that had been unloaded and parked by the crew, we pedaled off for a self-guided tour of the island relying solely on my memory of having been here twenty years ago and my uncanny sense of direction. A loop around the island presented tons more cars than I remember from my last visit... ditto for crazy people on mopeds. And I'm pretty sure this island used to be considerably flatter. With every hill we pedaled up I kept telling Nancy "it's all downhill from here". (I didn't have the opportunity to share that with Lauren. She was usually too far ahead of us.) Invariably, every time I made that promise, we came around a corner and were facing another hill. They were plentiful, but thankfully, short.
We took a break to check out Southeast Lighthouse, and got some 50¢ lemonade with a side of free stock tips from some young entrepreneurs. The lemonade was great, but the stock tip was somewhat outdated- "Apple Computers." "I love the gesture– big fan since the late "80's when I bought my first Mac, and if I had this tip ten years ago, I'd be buying your lemonade stand and a chunk of the island it's sitting on. Did I mention you make a great cup of lemonade?"

On our way back into town we finally came to downhill we had earned. I've never seen a sign like this. I can only imagine that the decision to install this sign was the result of countless tourists that came barreling out of control into the commercial district, gleefully capturing their reward after sweating out all those hills mentioned previously.


After our bike ride it was time to cool off at the beach. It's a short ride from town to State Beach where they go a long way to accommodate day trippers that are traveling light. There are changing rooms, and showers, and you can rent beach chairs, umbrellas and boogie boards.

When we'd had enough beach time we headed down the road back to town and stopped at the BeachHead Tavern for lunch and some well-deserved frosty cold beer. An hour or so to go until our 4:30 ferry back to New London gave us plenty of time to browse the many over-priced shops downtown. If you're not shopping for a t-shirt (why would I??) it's not easy to find a reasonably priced trinket. I did find a sweet mermaid bottle opener to bring home to Flip.

Once back onboard the Jessica W, we beat a "high-speed" path back to the mainland where we unwound from our daytrip eating cheesecake (thanks Lauren!) and watching Dave's new grass grow.



For the rest of the story... in pictures, go to my flickr photostream.