Ciao, Nantucket

Sandy and I left Nantucket at noon on a Thursday. We took that morning nice and slow, last minute packing, breakfast at the Inn, and just before lunch, boarded the ferry that would take us back to the mainland.

Again, I don’t do well on boats. I don’t like mass bodies of water, I don’t like cramped cabin space, and I especially don’t like the squalls and swells of choppy waves. It makes me sweaty and clammy, nauseous and icky, the lot of it. I bought us some hot chocolate and tried to discover Sudoku instead. I discovered I have no patience for it.

The Fall colours going home were just as beautiful as they were on the way up, and we got to enjoy them even more by spreading our journey over two days. And why are we spreading our journey over two days, when it’s just as doable to make it in one? To shop.

Nantucket has been good to us, but in terms of retail therapy, it sucked. It was great for pretty things and kitschy stuff; that hand-painted ornament I got will look really nice on Sandy’s Christmas tree, and the pumpkin beer was a blast. But for everything else, nada. Our shopping buds crave more.

Thus, we mapped out a few interesting stops to make our trip (and retail) experience all the more fruitful. First Luke’s Liquor Barn. Ta da! Discounted spirits in a gigantic aluminum sided fake barn! Sound cheesy? Oh it was, but another thing Sandy and I have in common is a passion for finer distilled products. When months ago I told him that I’ve been collecting old & unique liquors and wines since my teen years, he didn’t laugh because he does the same thing.

Purchase at the Barn: A nicely expensive bottle of pear brandy, ooh-la-la. I had to tear myself away from the Macadamia Liqueur and Kona Coffee Liqueur since there would be a border to cross, and I already had a bottle of Nantucket rum in the trunk. Boo. Sandy got a kick out of the miniature wines, and got himself a four pack of Woodbridge Estates. I laughed. Wouldn’t you?

Next stop: Ihop! We finally made it to the pancake house of glory and ordered... Steak! Isn’t all-day breakfast a scream? As tempted as I was by the mile-high stack of buttermilk babies topped with strawberries, the fruit looked suspiciously like canned pie filling, and so I passed. Our meals came with sides of small pancake stacks anyway, which we happily doused with maple syrup only after removing half the butter sitting on top. Really, who needs an ice cream scoop’s worth of milk fat?

Now that I’ve finally been to an Ihop, I can finally make my concensus: Alright. I won’t be going through Ihop withdrawal symptoms anytime in the near future, but I did really really like the bottomless coffee. By the time we left, my hands were shaking, I had a massive permagrin stapled to my face, and talked about everything under the sun, at a mile a minute. Sandy laughed. Wouldn’t you?

After this we get lost because our GPS system, which we have christened Shirley, decided she wasn’t up to working just then. While Shirley took over an hour to find a freakin’ signal, Sandy and I had no choice but to better discover the state of Massachusetts. Very pretty, very well put together, very nice during this time of year. A journey very full of profanities, because we really wanted to get that signal and on the highway.

After an hour Shirley finally got off her ass, found the signal and thus the highway. We drove for a few more hours, stopping only for the obligatory nature call, until it was dark and we slid into our next destination in Schenectady, New York.

Say Schenectady ten times really fast, Ske-neck-ta-dee, and you might just give yourself a headache. We didn’t exactly share a burning desire to go to Schenectady, New York, I mean it’s not like it was on travel list of dreams or anything like that, but we’re definitely here for a reason. You see, Schenectady, New York is home to the underestimated haven of cool, the pilgrimage of bargain hunters and the promised land of discount shopping: Target.