Last year, in July, Rich had the idea to spend a full day at our favorite swimming hole, Fernal Shores (actually called Fernald Shore, but I didn't realize that until a year after talking about the place, so I'm sticking with the original name I knew it by. We had a great day, and it still gets brought up from time to time, when talking about Jesse's one-for-the-ages sunburn, or when I upgraded to an iPhone 4 after swimming with my iPhone 1. Good times.
It was a blast, so we wanted to make sure to do it again this year. We showed up even earlier this year, and had an awesome day.
Irwin started off the day by begging for breakfast hot dogs.
While Josh wore an awesome shirt.
He refused to eat his food in favor of begging for ours. Dummy.
We came mega prepared this year. Not only did way more people come, but everyone brought A LOT of food. Look at this spread! We know how to do "hanging out at a beach all day" pretty perfectly.
There's nothing quite like a breakfast hot dog.
Even shitty Al loves them.
Here's Jesse drinking his "diet coke." (hint- there was a lot of rum in his diet cokes)
And here's a random picture of a squirrel someone took with my camera. I still don't know who. Apparently he stole some food, so someone wanted to get some pictures of him.
I love this one. Whoever took this- great job!
The reason this post is going by in fast forward and doesn't involve a lot of talking points isn't because I'm writing it 6 weeks after it happened (though that doesn't help). The reason is because this day followed the theme of this summer- I was having too much fun to remember to even take pictures. To be honest, I was in the water most of the day. Most of the day, for everyone involved other than Heidi, Dawn and Aaron (who left fairly early) and Al and his girlfriend (who sat on the beach reading while everyone else swam and then left insanely early) was spent in the water.
It absolutely ruled. The first round of swimming was small, but involved some good B and laughs. Then after eating again and hanging out on shore, round 2 was mega. Rich, Holly, Josh, Vicky, me, Jesse, Sarah, Matt, Tegan, Al, Heidi, and Dawn all throwing 2 frisbees and a waboba (a sweet little ball that bounces off water). I don't think I've ever had a game of water B-throwing with that many people, and it was a blast. It was the kind of thing that lasted incredibly long, but you still don't want it to end.
Round 3 involved us floating around, and me doing a new favorite summer activity- drinking a Blimearita way out in a lake while floating around and having laughs with friends. It was summer in a nutshell.
The day continued on like this- swim, come out and eat, swim, repeat. Some people left, Dan, Kate and Max showed up for the second half of the day, and even Reinert and Jess showed up for the last hour or so. It was exactly what we had wanted- just a bunch of friends hanging out and swimming all day, eating hot dogs and chips and having a good time.
No headball was played this year, but we did attempt a game of Tip, where you tip the frisbee to a teammate, which went pretty much exactly how it went on the Saco River trip: if my team didn't catch it, it was the fault of the other team who gave us a crappy throw, and if the other team did catch it, it was because we gave them perfect throws. Weird how any game involving Dan just erupts into arguments.
Eventually, the sun started going down, and we had to say goodbye to our full day at Fernal. I still don't understand how the day went so fast. I was there from just short of 9am until about 8:15pm, and I can't remember the last time something went by so fast. It felt like 5 hours, tops. I guess that says a lot about the day. It was just an awesome time, all day.
One of the best things about Fernal Shores is that you will never get a bad sunset there. And we got a special one that day.
I took this shot to mark the end of summer. Sure, this was in August and I had plenty of swimming left, but it really kind of felt like the end of summer that day. Jesse and Al were going back to work after a summer off, it was a big gathering of people I never swim with towards the end of summer, and we knew that swimming would start to die down as it got colder. It's weird how now, as I'm posting this in October, this picture really does make me sad... just a lonely frisbee floating in a lake with summer setting in the distance.
We got some great instagrams out of that sunset too. Here's Dan's, of me (I think) catching a frisbee from someone, with Max hanging out in the shallow water.
Here's Rich's, which is absurdly ridiculous in color, but I absolutely love: Max, enjoying summer and swimming the only way a 4 year old (or a 30 year old, apparently) can. As I type this, I remember that he was naked at this point- he was naked for like an hour, screaming WABOBA every 5 seconds. Weirdo.
And here's mine- one of my favorite pictures I took this summer. There's a huge stump in the water, which is completely out of place in an otherwise nothing-but-sand swimming area. Too many people stubbed their toes on it or swam directly into it last year, so the first thing I did this year was to jam a branch into it so we would know where it was. The branch stayed there all day, and I couldn't be happier I put it there, if only for this shot. I love the juxtaposition of it against the sunset with the reflective water. And the best part about this shot is- I didn't really do anything to it other than put 1 instagram filter on it and blur the edges a little to make it have a mysterious feel to it. I just waited until the sky was at its best, and did continued my theme of going way out in the water and braving destroying my phone again for sweet water shots. I absolutely love this picture.
Full day at Fernal was everything I wanted it to be, and hopefully next year is even better, with even more people, more swimming, more food, everything. I want to do this every year. It is now a new holiday I will always look forward to. FDAF represent.
currently listening to: Balmorhea- "Stranger"
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