The Black Dog

An iconic part of Martha's Vineyard is the Black Dog Tavern. It's just steps from the ferry landing in Vineyard Haven, where many tourists (aka Off-Islanders) arrive. ABF & I rolled in around 9am Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. ABF's brother, sister-in-law, and their two adorable nieces had arrived there a few days earlier. They met us at TBD for breakfast. ABF and I had barely slept the night before, hitting the road at 3am to make our 8am ferry, so we were a little punchy, but at the moment, company and hunger trumped the sleepiness!

I took a view from our table, looking out onto the water. I hadn't been to the Black Dog since I came here ages ago with my sister, dad and stepmom. I think we even sat at that table in the shot! We had been there for lunch, though, so I was looking forward to see what our breakfast options were.

The breakfast menu is BIG. There are so many options that I had quite a quandary deciding what to get. I ended up ordering Thank George's Bank (I have no idea what that means). It consisted of 2 poached eggs in Hollandaise sauce over a fishcake...sounded promising! I got an English Muffin on the side. The eggs were a little overpoached, almost hard-boiled for one, but the Hollandaise sauce was excellent. The fish cake was HUGE! It took up almost half the plate! I couldn't finish it all, and shared some with ABF and his brother.

ABF ordered the "One Sweet World," which came with 3 pancakes, 2 eggs any way, and bacon. While I'm not normally a pancake person, even I thought these were delicious. They were also bigger than your average pancake. They use real maple syrup, too, which makes SUCH a big difference. I may have had another sample or two of these pancakes (hey! I shared my fishcake, remember?)

We left breakfast quite stuffed, and also quite entertained by the 2 nieces, who were super-talkative and animated that morning! ABF & I headed on to see the Gay Head lighthouse and the clay cliffs of Aquinnah. I admit--as soon as ABF parked that car, I was sawing logs! We (mostly I) took a power nap for a while as the wind whipped around outside the car. We eventually got outside (this was a struggle for me--so sleepy!) and snapped a few photos before running back to the car. SO COLD!!!

We also stopped by my must-visit spot: Island Alpaca!!! ALPACAS!!!!!!! All in all, an awesome start to an awesome weekend!