Fire Island

Fire Island. I promised a blog, so here it is.

First, some background info on Fire Island itself. It's a barrier island off of Long Island. It requires a 3-4 hour car ride to NY (depending on traffic), followed by a 30 minute ferry ride. No cars allowed on the island - only emergency vehicles. Which means that people either walk or bike everywhere, and they use hand-pulled wagons to transport things.

The island is bordered by the bay on one side and the ocean on the other side. My friend's family has a house in Ocean Bay Park, which is on the bay side. In fact, their backyard is a small boardwalk/dock which leads directly into the bay. It's a five minute walk from the house to the other side of the island, which is the beach. The beach is always clean and never crowded... and there's no boardwalk or stores or anything commercial like that.

Usually, I drive to FI with Becky (she lived with me and Bonnie in college). But this year, she's going out there another weekend with her boyfriend. So I asked Sam if she wanted to go with me. Lo and behold, she made it back alive! And relatively uncorrupted!

Upon our arrival on Friday night, we were greeted by Bonnie (my friend and former college roommate) at the ferry dock. At the house we found Denise (Bonnie's friend) and Mitch (Bonnie's husband). That night, we mostly hung around the house and relaxed. We had a few drinks (Sam introduced NY to the Apple Pie Shot!) and had some bbq. Later that night, we went out to a few local bars (and when I saw local, I mean you walk down the street and you're there). No one in FI dresses up for anything. It's a lot of shorts and flip flops. Very beachy and casual, which is kind of nice.

On Saturday, we hit the beach. The weather was exquisite. Blue sky, warm sun, the occasional breeze. We set up our chairs and blankets and spent about 4 hours being lazy. We met up with Jordan (Bonnie's friend) and his boyfriend Nick, who entertained us with some gymnastics on the beach. Back to the house for showers, naps, and more Apple Pie Shots, and then we were off to Cherry Grove!

A sidenote: many people think Fire Island is a predominantly gay hangout. Only two towns in FI are known as "gay towns." (Not that there aren't gay people in the other towns...) Anyway, Cherry Grove is one of the towns known for its gay bars and entertainment. It's a bit too far to walk, so we took a water taxi (which is exactly what it sounds like) to Cherry Grove for dinner and dancing. We were a rather large party of 13 (having been joined by Bonnie's best friend Michael, his boyfriend Brad, Michael's brother Keith, Keith's wife Michelle, and two other friends of theirs named Rich and Laurie), but Bonnie had made dinner reservations a week in advance. As it turns out, the restaurant was not equipped to handle such a large party, and after two hours we still didn't have our meal. So after much drama, tears and complaining, we paid for our drinks and appetizers and went for pizza.

We spent the rest of Saturday night bar-hopping, dancing, taking a bunch of really funny pictures, watching Nick do his drunken imitation of Super Mario... good times, good times.

We woke early on Sunday, due to a certain text message from Mike (yay!). Then we had breakfast on the back porch, watching the boats drift by on the bay. After breakfast, we packed up and caught an early afternoon ferry back to the mainland. The car ride home didn't take as long as the drive there... plus we had a nice distraction: Erin called with the story of Henry's birth, and then Mike sent pics via text message. We stopped at Starbucks for some refreshment, and made it home just in time for dinner.

All in all, a fabulous weekend. I got to see some old friends and meet some great new people... I got some color and I had a chance to relax. I can't wait to go back!