Martha's Vineyard: Kid Heaven

The Obamas are taking a week off at Martha's Vineyard -- and I can't think of a better place to be with your kids. There's oodles of things for kids to do: jumping off the bridge from Jaws, riding the Oak Bluffs' Flying Horses Carousel, hiking, biking, flirting with each other by the Edgartown harbor (don't think I didn't notice!), or maybe feeding the pigs at the kid-run Farm Institute. When I visited the island recently I saw kids all over the island -- usually the latest installment of an arc of overlapping generations. Their parents bring them each summer, and someday will return the favor to their kids.

It's something much of America comes to envy. Growing up in Oklahoma, I spent summers dodging locusts, jumping fences for short-cuts to get to air-conditioned stores, and occasionally going to most of America's favorite destination: "the lake."

If you're not near a sea, lakes -- usually never referred to by their proper name -- fulfill water-based dreams (and beer-soaked ones by age 17). Often they're a muddy, artificial one like Tulsa's Keystone -- or the one made in Deliverance outside Atlanta (Lake Lanier). I remember vacationing near Kilgore, Texas, one hot summer and diving to reach waters a shade cooler than lukewarm, opening my eyes and seeing nothing but darkness -- then a catfish poked its head out of the abyss, blew a bubble at me, and disappeared. I was scared.

It's tempting for some us non-coasters to shrug off Martha's Vineyard as an exclusive, out-of-reach country club of Kennedys. But it really isn't. I learned on a recent visit that locals are, for one thing, a diverse lot, and equally welcoming (more so than the Hamptons). And you don't have to pay $50,000 a week to stay. There are campgrounds, hostels and $100 guesthouses, plus rental houses for about the same.

It's just another form of lake, but with benefits.

If you go with kids, pick up a kids' guidebook to the island called Quest at Vineyard Haven's Bunch of Grapes bookstore. It features a few activity-based itineraries to island beaches, swimming holes and hiking trails -- all created by island students.