At 7:00 a.m. I thought, it’s impossible. We won’t make the ferry by 9:50, with six people to get out the door, including a toddler and a dog. And then, somehow, we just did. A surprisingly stressless departure. And we picked up my friend Lilia from the town next door, and we were off, and actually got on an earlier ferry! It was such a cheerful trip, walking around the ferry in the sunshine of the deck, crossing to Martha’s Vineyard, with all happy memories of summer trips so recently behind us. Then, off to my brother’s house, and all of them ready for our day of a picnic and a hike. We all went to the little island of Chappaquidick, another little ferry crossing, and then our lunch, all wandering the Mytoi Japanese garden and chatting and catching up, the cousins all happy to be together. Then the hike on the beach in the full bright sunshine of a gorgeous late November day––and a few of us jumping into the Atlantic ocean for a polar plunge, including me, and what a quick and lovely dip it was. All the way home I enjoyed the scent of ocean in my wet hair. It was the perfect day. Back to their house in Oak Bluffs, warmth of a fire, and the return home, happy, filled up, grateful for an adventure that brought such delight to us all.