Peaks Island, day 3

Day 3 started with some sweet mini breakfast sandwiches from Tara, then us heading into town to get coffee, where people accidentally posed for fake band promo pictures. Damien is clearly the drummer.

As we sat around and watched Wyatt try to play with rusty nails, it started raining. We knew it was coming, but hoped it wouldn't show. It did. So we headed back and had a nice quiet day inside.

Tara colored some sweet pictures while Wyatt colored Damien's tail. 

Damien could use a little color in his life

Then we threw on Gentlemen Broncos, one of the finest films in all of cinema. 

Shaun and Natalie decided to head home, and apparently missed like 3 ferries because the line was so long for people leaving. Should have stayed guys!

After the Gentlemen Broncos ended, Tara apparently decided she wanted all the guys to leave, so she put on a movie starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and a lot of singing: The awful, awful musical, Mamma Mia! This sent us outside onto bikes pretty fast. We didn't even care that it was misty with a chance of pouring- we needed to get out of there. Kevin looked extremely natural riding Tara's rental bike. 

We decided to head up the road to where we had seen all of the cairns.

It was nice to be outside, even though it was disgusting out.

I took a lot of pictures. 

Here's Jake getting daring,

then running away in terror when the waves came after him.

man he blends in!

Kevin stayed safe.

We wandered around admiring all of the cairns. Some of them were pretty awesome.

We decided to make our own, right as the rain started kicking in again.

I went for a house structure with sticks like flowers growing out of the middle:

Kevin went for a more abstract approach, with some solid balancing.

And Jake went for the big balance- trying to get this insane rock on top of smaller ones. It actually worked. I was impressed, but I'm sure wind and waves knocked this thing down pretty quickly. Still, great job Jake.

This ended up being one of those weird times where I was at a place for 3 days and have lots of good memories with a good group of people, but when I think about the trip, my brain goes right away to a brief section of time where we made the best of not great situation. Just being out there in the rain, building cairns while the girls watched chick flicks, I don't know- it's just a nice memory, and it's where my brain goes first whenever I think of the trip. 

We headed back as it poured on us, and I threw my soaked clothes in the dryer and put on nasty dirty clothes. It was now Wyatt's turn for movie picks, and we were watching The Incredibles.

Here's a sweet picture of Damien freaking out on his dog bed. 

Tara and Gina went to the store for more chips and some ice cream sandwiches. They swore they'd be able to get fudgsicles, but they were drastically overestimating the inventory at the 1 store on an island. Jake, Kevin, Wyatt and I were fairly bored, so we attempted to play Texas Hold 'em while Wyatt played with his toys.

It turns out Texas Hold 'em doesn't really work when you try to bet empty beer cans and potato chips. Everyone just goes all in every time. And who wants to win empty beer cans? So we played Go Fish.

Hey 2 readers of this blog, when was the last time you played Go Fish? We had to look up the rules online because none of us remembered exactly how to play. Let me tell you something- Go Fish is AWESOME. What a great game. Shit got very competitive and we each won one game. As Tara and Gina finished cooking up 3 different pizzas, we had one more game to decide the true winner, which was ME. BOOM.

We sat down for a lovely dinner with some more sweet dinner music.

After cleaning everything up (it's astonishing how many dishes are created when a big group of people cook for every meal), I decided it was time to head out. I had only planned on being there until that night, and the next day looked like more rain. I had had enough. So I checked the Ferry schedule, packed up everything into my backpack, threw the built-in waterproof cover over it, hopped on my wet bike, and rode toward the Ferry in the dark. It felt so weird to leave friends who were settling in for a movie in our happy little home. I had already gotten fairly used to island living in our sweet little house by the ocean. But it was time. I missed my bed.

Of course I'm an idiot and I screwed up the Ferry schedule. It was now technically "off season," and the times had changed. I caught that, but I looked at the times the ferry LEFT portland, not arrived at Peak's Island. Oops. 

So I sat there in the cold for 25 minutes while people started showing up. I rode back (again the only one with a bike, and again, I felt cool because of this) while listening to a group of 50+ year olds who had been partying pretty hard. They may have even taken the ferry just to have drinks there. I love listening to drunk adults. So many bad jokes.

It was actually even cooler to leave the island to head back to the real world, especially in a dark fog. The distant horns of tugboats all around us, the sound and smell of the ocean, misty lights everywhere- it had a very neat atmosphere- a transitional world between Island Life and the daily grind back on dry land. Going alone on a bike made the experience that much more of an alien world.

This was a giant boat that I thought looked awesome reflecting on the water. I loved the light rays coming off it too. 

I had arranged for Pog to come pick me up (he awesomely volunteered to drive my illegally parked car to his house), and I practiced my slow motion biking while waiting for him. He forgot I had my bike, but luckily he had everything he needed to throw it on the back of his car. Him picking me up saved me the worries of my car getting ticketed or towed, and it saved me having to ride up a steep hill while it was still misty and gross outside. Thanks again Pog. We hung out as his house for a bit, then I headed back to NH and regular life. It was new experience and an awesome little vacation with great friends. Hope to do something like this again!