The poofers and guilleys stole my heart

Okay, so here I am, finally. It turns out that my consistant roomie and fellow education intern, Mila, has a laptop and graciously allowed me to use it. Our connection is decent enough, it's just the computer available for us is at least 9-years-old and can't handle it. Now, I haven't had a chance to download any pictures from my camera, but once I do, I will make sure you all can have a look-see. In the meantime, I will use pics from the internet.

So, from the beginning, which was a lot longer ago than I think it should be, I drove to St. Cat's and hung out with Manda, Nick, and the kitties for a couple days. It was unbelievably hot, but worth every minute. Manda outdid herself and gave me my birthday present of(Remi, take note) the dvd set of The Life of Mammals. And in order to do it up right, we smoked a little and watched the herbivores episode. OMG, I have never been so into animals. I am now convinced that they have attitudes and feelings just like us. Either that, or they did some damn fine editing. Manda also got me onto Facebook, which I think the rest of you should join the cool kids too and create another thing for you to forget to update.

From there, I drove to Boston and stayed with a friend of mine from high school and her boyfriend. I got lost on the way in to town and it took about a half hour to get to where I was supposed to be. We did a whirlwind walking tour of Beantown and saw a good portion of the historical highlights. It wasn't really what I expected it to be. It had a more small-townish appeal to it than I ever would have imagined. I really liked it and would recommend visiting it if you ever get the chance. The area that they live in is so typical Boston: the brick, 5-story buildings split into apartments. Anyway, I was impressed. And we ate in Cambridge and I saw Hahvahd and MIT. Not that special, but the restaurants were good. For you Dave, I want to mention that we passed some people that were sitting in front of an appliance store with a TV in the window and speakers under the awning watching, what else, the Red Sox game. Even a cruiser was pulled up and the cops were out watching it. Yeah, that's Boston.

From there, I drove the 3 or so hours up to Maine, stopping at LL Bean, wiping out my birthday certificate from Sue in one expensive raincoat, but it was very much appreciated. I plan on going back soon, since I was only there for an hour. And really, Freeport is just a bunch of outlet malls, so obviously, more time has to be spent there. Then I fairly easily found my way to the Audubon base camp. It's right on the water in Muscongus Bay. I actually spent the first few nights on Hog Island, just a 1/4 mile across the water, where an Audubon camp has been for the past 70 years. People like Roger Tory Peterson have been there, so it was kind of awe-inspiring. We spent the first few days doing orientation-type stuff and getting to know everyone. Then the rain came. Our departure to the islands was delayed a day, but we were able to get out on a day without too much rain or wind. I went to Eastern Egg Rock. It's a 7 acre island with a cabin for cooking and relaxing, a composting outhouse which really wasn't too bad once you got used to it and realized that nothing was going to bite you in the ass when you sat down, and wooden platforms for our tents. Better than some of the other islands. But what we have is made up for the silence that we lacked. It is freakin' noisy all the time, cause the birds live right next to your tent and do not shut up at any time of day. It's really the laughing gulls that do it all. They are loud and obnoxious and like to sit on top your tent at 4:30am reestablishing their territory with a racket that makes you want to kick them. And horny! I have never seen an animal get it on as much as those gulls. Anyway, I'm glad I had a cd player with me.

It rained most of the first week we were out there and we really couldn't do much of anything because of that. I read a lot (thank you Sarah and Remi for A Primate's Memoir - laugh out loud funny), drank a lot of tea, and slept. When it finally stopped raining, we were able to do some research. We would spend 3 hours out in the blind, either watching puffins or terns and snacking a lot. It was amazing how close the birds would get. And I'm totally in love with just about all of them now. Especially the puffins, guillemots, and cormorants. The puffins, obviously, the guillemots because they are so clumsy and make these high pitched squealing noises, and the cormorants because they are so ugly. So, I got really dirty and didn't bathe for over two weeks except for a babywipe bath. A lot of my clothes had bird shit all over them. And I'm kinda sad I had to leave. Yeah, really. But, I also appreciate my position now, because I don't have to wait to shower or only eat beans when the supplies are low.

So, I'm now living at what's called the VCA. I've spent a few days working at the Visitor Center in Rockland and tomorrow will go out on my first puffin cruise. The weather has been beautiful of late and I've enjoyed driving around seeing new places and meeting new people. I'm still waiting to do some serious hiking, but really just about everywhere I go is picturesque. So, I think I've written my piece for now. I'm hungry and am going to make dinner. Stay tuned for more updates and pictures to come. And even though I'm having a pretty great time, I still miss all of you. Latah.