If you'd make the drive, I'd take you there

When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time. When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever. I could say: those mountains have a meaning, but further than that I could not say. -Adrienne Rich

To the reader, do you mind if I indulge myself in the next few posts with an overload of photos, and an excess of overused but unarguably accurate adjectives?  My friend Ammen turned 35, and since he's only ever going to turn 35 once, and since I've known him nearly half of my life, I want it all to be recorded.

We spent a long weekend on Whidbey island, in a cabin on the beach, smoke on the water, the lights of Port Townsend glowing from across the harbor. It was my first weekend back in the Northwest, and the outland dressed up for the occasion in greys and pearls, smoldered in fog, churned out ribbons of alien seaweed onto the pebbly coast. The stormy weather, moody ocean and the silvery rain constantly falling was met with whiskey bottles, bonfires, new belgium beer, hot coffee, books, and huge meals cooked up by Stephanie. 

I've known this for a little while, and I've waited to write about it because I had to first put my arms around her and make sure that it was real. She's one of the biggest reasons I moved back to Seattle, and the best news of the year, of the decade, is that she is healthy again.  All this is behind us. So go outside, run around, drink one down, climb to top of the nearest mountain or sky scraper, take someone out to dinner, kiss them really well if you can, light a fire, and raise a toast to Steph and Ammen, because they deserve it.

Saturday afternoon, the ferry glides through flat dark water on a  perfectly polished fall day. Steph, Guinevere and I spend the whole time digging through the truck to find a board game to pass the time. We overestimate the length of our boat ride, because when we find the thing, "Catchphrase" and bring it up to the deck, we can see the island in such detail that we know we are already there.

We have the truck loaded down with backpacks and bags, coolers of beer and pots of food strapped shut and three birthday cakes, already frosted, balanced on our laps in the cab. We show up windblown and covered in icing. We show up leaping out of the truck and running up the steps to throw our arms around Ammen, and all the other people at the cabin who have biked with him the 80 miles out to the island. And may I say, sometimes it's worth not seeing your oldest friends for a whole year just for the joy of reuniting with them.

At a place like this:

For a weekend spent doing this: 

And this:

More to come. Only so much at once. . . .