Remember last summer when we thought spending a few weeks at the beach seemed perfectly reasonable? I do. Vaguely.

Taking hundreds of pictures during our Vineyard trip last August was a clutch move. Sure, the memories will sustain us for a while. More importantly, my laptop is throwing off a lot of heat as I fix the tilted horizons and try to eliminate zombie dog eyes… and I’m sure running a computer is far cheaper than turning the heat up above 58 degrees.

Viewing the world from the late November market’s underbelly, hitting the road for two weeks seems a little extravagant. But I wouldn’t want the money back. Blowing it on an overland parking permit, Back Door Donuts, Sharkey’s margaritas and fishing poles (the ones a certain dog who shall remain nameless ate somewhere between Providence and New London) sure was fun. Pull up a chair and warm your hands by the CPU with me as I stroll down memory lane.

I’m still enamored of the clams in the bucket. If I took one picture of these, I took 4 dozen. Greedy greedy greedy.

The Edgartown Lighthouse is beautiful inside and out. And, yeah, I remember those flip flops. I think Talullah ate them some time in early September.

More extravagant memories after the jump.

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Last year, my family and I discovered clamming at Wasque. Clams, clams, glorious clams. Because we have no sense, we took buckets and buckets and buckets of ‘em. I don’t exactly know what it was we thought we’d do with 82 bushels of clams. They don’t exactly travel well on, say, a seven hour car trip.

This year we’re showing restraint and imposing a one-bucket limit on ourselves. In this case, an orange bucket.

And yes, they were delicious.

It’s not all fun and games here, people. We’ve got serious work to do on this vacation. Observe the mighty canine, at the ready to grab small children from the rip tide. But he doesn’t need the rescue board. Salvation is just a giant labrador head away. Just grab on to those ears and hang on.