Kelley's Island

We just returned from a week’s vacation on Kelley’s Island. My brother and his wife have been vacationing there for the past 10 years and Cindy’s family has been vacationing on Kelley’s since her childhood and in fact we met more than a few people who have been coming back to the island for 20-30-40 years. The attractions are many starting with the 20 minute ferry ride and once you drive to your condo or home you really needn’t drive again unless you are launching your boat at the state park on the north side. The island measures 4 miles in either direction and the intersection “downtown” has 5 or 6 restaurants, tourist retail establishments and 2 of the 3 marinas. The island does not have a bank or a gas station and the grocery store cannot be half the size of a drugstore! Generally everyone either rides a bike or takes a golf cart which are rented everywhere! For the kids the lack of car traffic makes for fairly unrestricted travel around the island and they spent many hours biking everywhere. The fishing was pretty fair and we caught perch and bass and saw sheepshead and walleye around the stone fishing pier at the state park. Throw in some tubing and we made great use of Lake Erie – we even saw a few Lake Erie Water Snakes swimming everywhere. The kids had a great time with their cousins and although I did check emails on Tuesday and did payroll on Thursday via the library’s internet ports I didn’t really “work” and was able to enjoy the week away.