Fire Island

For those of you that haven't been to Fire Island I definitely recommend it. Aside from parking and ferry fees, the day and a half I spent there was quite economical. I can't believe it took me so long to check it out. It reminded me a lot of the time when I went to visit my buddy Jay in Cape Cod/Martha's Vineyard only on a slightly smaller scale.
I went with Rupe Saturday afternoon on the 1:30 ferry. We were hoping to get there earlier but he tried to wait for his friend Betsy to shake off her hangover from the night before. Too bad, I've heard a lot about her and was looking forward to meeting her. It was just as well since it was cloudy all morning and I was actually able to get some things done around the house before we left. By the time we got there the sun made it's way through the clouds signaling our arrival.
We stayed at Bong and Katie's house, they rented it out with some of their friends for the week, which was ideally located by the ferry dock. Along with the proximity to the ferry, it was just a stone's throw away from the beach, the bar (The Casino) as well as the general store.
As soon as we got there the drinking started and before I knew it Bong was making me drink out of a funnel. I hadn't done one of those since college, setting a dangerous precedent for the rest of the day.
It ended up being a gorgeous Summer day and aside from the drinking, I managed to eat my share of hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken. Now that's what I call living! I also managed to do some swimming which probably wasn't a good idea considering I was pretty buzzed by then. As the day slowly became night the drinking increased as everyone at the house was getting ready for the next phase of the day: going to the Casino. Unfortunately as we all tried to drink our fill before getting to the bar I started to feel a little nauseous. Maybe it was the beer, the food, the sun and the swimming. Whatever it was I knew was I wasn't going to be in top form once we got there.
As it turned out the bar wasn't as happening as we had hoped and me, Rupe (who wasn't feeling that great either) and our buddy Cliff ended up heading back to the house before Bong and his pals did. Which brings me to the only bad part of my visit, along with Rupe and Cliff I had to crash out on the floor on the ground floor of the house. That was tough since I had an on again off again headache at that point and at around 2am the rest of the house mates made their way back from the bar to do even more drinking!
At least Rupert had his Aerobed, I swear I came really close to trying to roll him off of it to see how long it would take before he realized that I had bogarted it from him. Meanwhile me and Cliff had to make do with our sleeping bags. At least his was relatively new, mine clearly had seen better days. I dug it out of my gargage the night before and wasn't looking forward to using it. I have to hand it to Bong, Katie and their friends, they were like rock stars that day. It reminded me of the days when I used to be able to abuse my liver like that and not have to worry about the consequences. Unfortunately those days are a lot further in the past than I want to admit. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep that night.

We woke up early the next day to an overly overcast sky and for a little while it looked like me and Rupe were going to join Cliff on an early ferry back to Long Island. He had to catch a flight later that evening so he had an excuse but for me I wanted to try and stick it out there since I didn't know when I'd be back. Unfortunately for Cliff left the skies opened up shortly after he left and me and Rupe ended up hanging out on the beach with Bong and some of his pals that were able to get up.