My Weekend Part I: How I Entertained Myself Saturday Morning

So this weekend I went home for a little family and fun. It was Ellen's birthday and Jess's going-away party, so I knew I was in for quite a few days. Thus, I present you with the first of three posts. This first one is How I Entertained Myself Saturday Morning, the next one will be Fun With Ellen and Kate, and the last will be Bon Voyage Jess.

Part I

Saturday morning, while waiting for Ellen to arrive, I went out to Fort Williams. I know my first attempt at shooting the lighthouse sucked, so I decided to try again. Thus, for about twenty minutes, I played tourist.




When I was little (even up through middle school) I Didn't Get It-- what was the big deal about this lighthouse? The rest of Fort Williams was so much cooler-- it was like that nearly infinite expanse that is Calvin and Hobbes' backyard. There are forts and hiding places and kite-flying fields and paths and old trees everywhere, and yet everybody came for the Lighthouse.

I understand it now today, but really, there is more to see than the old blinky-blinky. This narrow gorge and the rocks, for instance, where the Annie C. McGuire fetched up.



Afterwards I walked up the hill to the big stone mansion.

Ever since I was little I have called the "Caterpillar House" because to me it looked like a big caterpillar, some big woolly bear, lying at the top of the hill, just watching people.


The skeletal remains of this place have now been deemed "unsafe," although I remember it always being unsafe. Even though there was always the danger of being beaned in the head with a falling brick, you could still wander about inside the place. Now there are stupid chain link fences everywhere, keeping people out.



It's still eerily beautiful, though. These slabs of stone probably were the beginnings of my deep fascination with The Abandoned.


I love all the angles. There is so much to see once you look.


This is my favorite picture that I took this entire weekend, just because it all came together so perfectly:


And of course, being the nearsighted kind of person I am, here are some close ups:



When I was little I always thought it was big deal for a tanker to go by. The utterly huge behemoths with their barely-audible low bass thrums always made me happy. I loved watching them start out so small, just a little speck, and then grow bigger and bigger until they were the only thing in the whole ocean. Dad would tell me they were ugly smelly things (often filled with disgusting things like tapioca roots) but I still loved them. So when I walked out to the end of the road and past the fort, I saw a tanker starting to make its move into the bay.




After about ten minutes of being entirely engrossed in the progression of this monstrosity, I finally turned around and started back to the car. When I gave one last look back, I saw this little boy, still enraptured by the sight of this beast:


It's good to know I'm not the only one who gets lost while watching these things.