We are vacationing in a small town called Weekapaug in south eastern Rhode Island. My dad has been coming to this small, summer vacation spot on the Block Island Sound since 1938. I’ve been coming since I was a baby.
The other day, I was talking to a mom on the beach who has only recently discovered the paradise that Weekapaug is.
“When I tell people I’m going to the beach, they don’t realize that it’s so much more than just a beach,” she said, as we watched our children run off with a big group of kids to play in the rocks that run along the shoreline.
You see, Weekapaug is a community. Kids make lasting friends here that they see when they come every y\summer. I played with the kids of my dad’s friends. My kids play with the kids of the friends that I made when I was a kid. There’s also family that we never see at home. My aunts and uncles still come here and many cousins have put down roots up here.
It’s an amazing place. It’s the happy place I tried to recall when I was in the throws of labor. It’s a place where the kids can hop on their bikes and be gone for hours, and I don’t worry. It’s the place that we talk about all winter long and when we finally arrive, we just about blink and it’s time to go home.
“We are so lucky,” I told my friend on the beach, as my youngest came back with a bucket full of starfish and ran off to get his boogie board.
Does your family have a special place like Weekapaug? We’d love to hear about it.
we did, we DID – at Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire. Only, my dad’s brother & sister didn’t want to hang onto an old cabin that needed maintenance and plenty of TLC. But so many many many happy memories and stories from that place. Luckily it wasn’t sold until all of us were in college.
We also summer in Weekapuag. My husband’s family (Rowe/Brooks/Hoffman/Bullock) have been summering there for close to 50 years. My girls (Alexis & Zoe-7) are the 4th generation spending summers up there. Watching the Great Blue Heron on Quonochontaug pond from our front porch or building giant sand castles on Fenway Beach, the time we are there is like a time-warp. It reminds me of a step back in time and similar to the beach community I grew up in along the Chesapeake Bay in Calvert County, MD. My girls look forward to it each summer and are already talking about starting sailing lessons next summer. My husband wishes all the trails were still around to go exploring.