Peaks Island, day 2

Day 2 started with a Tara breakfast feast of eggs, bacon, pancakes, fruit, yogurt, etc. It was niiiice. Pog and Simone showed up as we were cleaning up the kitchen, and we set off for the beach.

Except it was really just a pile of rocks. 

With beautiful views.

Here's our set up from rocks I explored. It was a sweet little peninsula.

Wyatt was looking his best in a Batman hooded bathing suit zip up thing.

he's the hero Peaks Island deserves

This was clearly a max and relax vacation, with most people kind of just sitting around and popping some beers. I set out to explore the rocks and took some sweet pics.

Kevin skipping rocks:

Waves crashing over rocks:

The view of a neighboring island from the edge of rock cliffs on our little peninsula:

A similar view from farther out in the rocks:

I found a lot of treasures:

Including a Pog basking on the rocks:

 Check out this bitchin rope swing. To nowhere.

After wandering around the rocks looking for treasure and pictures while smelling the awful stink of settled ocean puddles, I saw that Kevin and Shaun had beat me to doing the stupid thing of swimming in the ocean:

So I went down and joined them. I've never liked swimming in the ocean and don't know why anyone would. It's absurdly freezing, there's just giant horrific rocks instead of smooth sand, there's gross seaweed everywhere, and the water is salty and disgusting. But it was hot and we were on the ocean- it felt weird to not go in at least once. I brought the frisbee down more as a joke than anything, and we stood in the water freaking out from the temperature for 5-10 minutes max. Getting out, the sun felt absolutely incredible. 

After warming up, we all just continued chilling. Pog really went for it:

And Damien played fetch. I didn't think a pit bull would care about running after a stick or swimming, but robo Damien hopped right in. It was adorable.

Unfortunately, he tired out pretty quick though, ending by gag coughing and throwing up. Poor guy.

It was great to see him acting young though, and chasing the stick every time Tara threw it. That thick skull of his just doesn't know when to stop.

We then headed up to a pig roast/party thing that was being held at the same place Dan's wedding had been. There was a band that sounded like a bad version of a phish cover band:

And there was food. We were supposed to pay 15 bucks each for unlimited food, but none of the food looked all that great to us and we are pretty cheap. Shaun manned up and bought a ticket and went up, bringing a ton of food back for everyone. Then we slowly realized that nobody was really paying attention to if we had tickets/bracelets, and we became scumbags that had free food. 

hamburger with watermelon: not good. 

We headed to the store to get food and more beer for the night. I then bought this sweet "Got Beer?" hat and proceeded to wear it, much to everyone's delight:

I hit up the umbrella museum real quickly solo, because I was the only one interested in it. It's literally an umbrella cover museum- a room full of umbrella covers from all over the world. When I talked to Nancy (who pretty much runs the whole thing), she told me they were waiting on their official Guiness Book of World Record paperwork for the largest umbrella cover collection.

literally just now noticing her sweater

I went in there because it was hilarious and very random. I felt like if Peaks Island was known for having this (and it kind of is), I had to go. And you know what? It was actually kind of interesting, at least in the "wow, there are a ton of these" or "wow, this is from Mongolia?" way. I even got a private show: 

Here's a beautiful silhouette of Shaun and I on the walk back. Can you tell which one is me?

When we got back, Wyatt continued to be cute,

And the Robertson family decided to take him on a bike ride. 

Since I wanted to experience as much of Peaks Island as I could, I joined them. 

There were sections all along the road where people had made hundreds of little rock cairns of various sizes, and it looked like people had generally left them alone for eternity. 

There were a lot of nice spots along the road.

I always love seeing someone just sitting alone with a view like this. This guy gets it. 

There was really only one hill, which was marked with this at the top.

Other than that, the ride was awesome. It was 2-3 miles of gently rolling tar roads along the ocean for 60% of it. When it wasn't right next to the ocean, it took us through super tight neighborhoods where we got to see the ridiculous names of all the houses. Towards the end, there was a huge harbor next to us. I got to see a sweet sailboat,

and then shortly after, this view: 

We met everyone else back in town for some ice cream, where Wyatt tried his hand at being cute. 

this may be my favorite picture of him ever

We walked back and drank some brewskies, then Kevin served up the pulled chicken he had had in the crock pot all day. He had dill and mint in it! WTF! We sat down at the dinner table outside and listened to a sweet Pandora station playing nothing but big band stuff from the 50s. How classy are we?

on island time

As the night went on, things got weird.

Jake and I ate a bag and a half of chips, and eventually the night ended as they usually do at our get-togethers, with Kevin, Gina and I being the only ones up. We played horrible music and had a lot of laughs. Then... let's just say the pulled chicken didn't agree with me. After calling me and playing a song I'd been trying to play for the last 40 minutes (I think it was Kanye West's "All of the Lights") over the phone, Kevin and Gina snuck into bed while I was in the bathroom. Kevin was out pretty quick. The joke here being of course, that Kevin partied until I pooped. 

I settled into my pile of pillows, blasted the fan on me, and snored all night while Shaun and Natalie tried to sleep. 

currently listening to: Emmure- "Slave To The Game"

Peaks Island, day 1

Well, clearly I've lost interest in this blog. I'm blogging on October 30th about something that happened  at the beginning of September. Ughk. I suck.

Oh well, I still want to get caught up and document stuff, so here goes.

Dan O'Halloran got married at the beginning of September on Peak's Island. I wasn't invited, but Jake/Tara, Kevin/Gina and Shaun/Natalie all were and decided to rent a house for the whole week, on the island. I invited myself to stay with them for a few days, and it was on.

I bought a ticket on Sunday afternoon and parked my car in a no-overnight-parking lot for a planned 3 days, threw everything I felt I needed into my enormous hiking backpack and hopped on my bike, riding a mile or so through Portland and to the ferry. I felt pretty awesome doing this- just a man on a bike with everything he needed hoping on a ferry, setting off on an adventure to an island. What didn't feel awesome was that the bag was already heavy, and then I added a huge bottle of beer into it. My back was exploding by the time I got there.

Most people took their cars, but tickets for that were like 60 bucks. A bike ticket was like 5. Only one other person was as cheap as me.

I've been on a ferry before and maybe even to one of the islands off Portland, but I'm not sure. Either way, it was pretty awesome setting off and leaving Portland behind. 

And pretty beautiful with the amount of clouds in the sky.

I liked what my phone said for directions. Walking directions: Use caution.

I wandered around the ferry taking a million pictures for instagram. This HDR was my favorite:

just ignore the 2 buoys next to each other.

The ferry connected to the dock on Peaks Island and I walked up the hill with a bunch of people. There was a band playing reggae in the first building. I knew I was at a good place. This sign further solidified that:

I texted Tara to make sure everyone was there, and followed my directions to the house, which was happily like a half mile away. 

It was quite nice- I wasn't expecting this nice.

my badass wildcat towel representing

The house across the street was ridiculous.

This picture is from later on, but this was pretty much all that happened for awhile:

Maxing. Relaxing.

I threw my stuff inside, settled into a chair and chilled. It was a nice day, and relaxing was about all that was happening.

Wyatt set about being cute, trying to take old man Damien on walks:

Damien was awesome,

and Wyatt got more cute.

Maybe we should have kept the beer away from him...

A few of us went on a walk down the street to the ocean, which was literally like a 4 minute walk to beautiful scenery. I was already quite a fan of Peaks Island. Soon, Shaun and Natalie set about making a taco dinner for everyone, and I got fancy with some Brother Thelonius in sweet Maine glasses.

Then I remembered how early these people go to bed. We settled in and threw Blades of Glory on and people started falling asleep at like 10. Luckily I somehow felt tired (probably because of the thelonius), so I was able to actually fall asleep around 12, sleeping on a couch pullout in the living room with Shaun and Natalie. I forgot to take a picture of the bed, but it was small and not entirely supportive, but got the job done.

I'm gonna break this trip up by day. Day 2 will have LOTS of pictures.