Ah yes ... Middle Road!

One of my favorite places to bike on all of Martha's Vineyard is Middle Road, a five mile route that runs east and west from West Tisbury, down the road behind Alley's store, to Beetlebung Corner in Chilmark. Though short in length, it's long in beautiful views of ocean and meadow that beckon you to dismount your bike and sit along a roadside stone fence to gaze at the beauty of the island. Middle Road, so-called because it runs parallel and in between North and South Roads, transverses the highest point on the island and affords wonderful vistas of the Atlantic on the south shore of the Vineyard.


Middle Road, here in red, runs west from West Tisbury to Chilmark.

To reach Middle Road from Alley's store, one rides down Music Street, lined with whaling captain's houses, built in a different era but immaculately maintained. The street was so-named because the sailors would return from their travels with pianos that could occupy their wives while their men were gone for months at a time. The tunes being played by the solitary wives could be heard from anyone travelling along the road, so it is said, and so the street picked up its quaint name.

On Wednesday morning, we left Stef and Al at Alley's (to return home on their own) and set out by ourselves up Music Street and on to Middle Road. "Make sure you get some pictures of the bulls and don't forget one of the lambs!" Stef called to us as we pedalled away. We had been up the road a day before but by car.

Talking about cars, bicycling or walking on Middle Road is certainly the only way to experience it. Locked in an air-conditioned metal box of a car separates you from smelling, seeing and, indeed, feeling the exquisite beauty that is all around you. When I first came to the Vineyard, I could bike on Middle Road and not see a solitary car for the entire ride of five miles. Sadly, that's not so any more as car after car passes you as you pedal along. Some may call that progress . I call it devastation of once beautiful nature.

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On Middle Road you pass beautiful farms and idyllic meadows.


It's just you, your bike and beauty.


Taking a morning nap in the shade of an old oak tree.


Bah! Chilmark sheep in their pasture.


Old fences - stone and wood.


Fog rolls in from the distant ocean. One of my favorite views.


Enjoying the view.


Finally, a picture of me!