I'm back. Some thoughts, likely in a disjointed fashion, since I'm dirty, need a shower and need to unpack.

Apparently I missed the entire Northeast electricity grid go down and some virus run rampant through CPUs.

I have no sympathy for those without power my age. I haven't had electricity since Monday. :P

Rock Island rocks. Period. The entire time I was there, I didn't have to think about ANYthing at all back here. Nothing. It was so relaxing. There were no animals bothering us...just flies, but they weren't biting flies, so they were more a nuisance, really. There was a raccoon on the island, but he stayed and harrassed some folks just younger than us from Oak Park who took ZERO precaution to prevent the thing from taking their food. All Mr. Raccoon had to do was wander to their site and have his way. We were appreciative for the stoned, drunk folks from Oak Park who I tried to teach astronomy to on Wednesday night on the beach. We went out there to watch the meteor shower (which was cool, but not supremely impressive because of the full moon), and they (about eight of them) were out there drinkin' and sitting...they overheard me telling Pete, Barb and Will the different constellations, and called us over. We chatted for a while, but it was no big deal, really...just found out they were Oak Park H.S. graduates or whatever. Will and I hung out with them a bit on Thursday night, but it wasn't really that much fun, truthfully. I barely even knew any of their names. They did have little musical instruments though, and they gave me a drum or whatever, but that lasted a couple minutes, and that was that. They offered me a swig of their Jim Beam...I pretended to swig but didn't actually drink...how the hell was I supposed to know what was in there? ;) They were weird, but they weren't idiots, at least as little as I knew them.

The stars were amazing, though, when the moon hadn't risen yet. We had perfect weather--not too hot, not too cold. No clouds. It was perfect. I got some sunburn from being on the beach, hiking a bit and waiting at the boathouse for Will to arrive on Tuesday.

We ate burgers, kielbasa, brats, not-so-EasyMac, pudgy pies (grilled sandwiches of all sorts made in hand-held sandwich grillers), oatmeal, cereal, etc. Next time, we're thinking of keeping it to granola bars and sandwiches, because the pudgy pie makers are soooooo damn versatile. We were happily impressed.

Overall, much fun was had by all. Did a lot of sitting around and just chillin' by the fire or on the beach or whatever. Gerard visited briefly on Tuesday, which was nice. The four of us went to Washington Island on Wednesday and checked out the Lookout Tower, and it was clear enough to see Rock Island and the other surrounding islands, which it wasn't last time, if I remember right. The stupid thing was still rickety, but at least I wasn't alone in my fear of heights this time. :) Heard that "The Albatross," the greasy-spoon joint with the best milkshakes around, had burned down a year or so ago, which made me a bit sad, but saw that they had rebuilt it almost to exact perfection, and I was happy to see that. Took Barb to the doctor for a bug bite of some sort on Wednesday as well, but she was fine after taking some Benadryl given to her, which is good. Thursday, Pete and Will and I were hiking back from the lighthouse on the island when I said I was thinking about how weird it would be to be out here on, say, Sept. 11, and then not know about it until we got back on Friday. How weird it would be for the world to go on without you even knowing it, particularly the world changing without you knowing. So, when the ranger told me this morning while we were waiting for the ferry, I walked back to Pete with a big smile, saying, what did I talk about yesterday? Well, the world has moved on...the Eastern Seaboard is blacked out. We found out later, at lunch, that it was actually only about five states and a bit of Canada (which is still a lot), but I was thinking the entire Eastern Seaboard. I was disappointed I couldn't rub the loss of Tivo in Laz's face, too. :P

We sang songs, which I kind of expected, with me, my cousin, Barb and Pete in the fold...you can expect music. We especially kept singing (me and Will) "Spider" by They Might Be Giants. We quoted movies, SNL, did impressions, made up impressions, and a billion other things. I was mocked for being crabby, because I kept pretending to turn around and yell "Shut the FUCK up, we're trying to be loud over here" at our camping neighbors, all of whom were very quiet, even the kids. Barb was mocked for making innocent, but horribly innuendo-laden, misleading statements all week (She can share them with you on her blog, if she wants, but the words "box," "teabag" and "brown-eye" were the punchlines). Pete was called Chronos and Photos, a real Greek and made-up Greek god, because he had a watch and was the official photographer. And Will was mocked for micromanaging the fire once he arrived, constantly pushing logs all over the place instead of just letting it burn. But see, we all got and took the jokes, because we knew they were jokes and knew we could turn them around on each other as well. It was a great, relaxing and fun atmosphere. I can't wait to do it again with more people.

Now, though, I must shower.