I'm on a boat and...

Part two of my Fourth of July weekend adventure begins...now!

When last I left you good folks, Anna and I had returned home from a long day of celebrating freedom and fireworks and baseball and all things American. We arose Friday morning - once again, a little worse for wear - and readied ourselves for a long journey to the eastern shore of Maryland, where we would find BOATS.

(The theme of my weekend, I've decided, is boats. This sounds like the really terrible option for a prom theme in a teen movie or something like that. I think I might use this to write a screenplay. Anyways.)

The drive from D.C. to Easton, Maryland, where Anna's water house is takes about an hour and a half. A fairly pleasant drive, except for the DEATH DEFYING TRIP OVER THE BAY BRIDGE. I was initially very excited about driving over the Chesapeake Bay, expecting to gaze out in wonder over the pollution-filled waters and feel a love of American nature.

But as we approached, I saw that not only does the bridge go on seemingly FOREVER, it sort of bends to the left in the middle. Like, there is a turn in the bridge. A BRIDGE SHOULD NOT REQUIRE A TURN, BRIDGES SHOULD BE STRAIGHT. The really upsetting part of that turn is that you can see, very clearly, how high you are and how likely your death would be were your car to plummet off the bridge at a later point.

As you can tell, I'm not a huge fan of bridges. I'm not like actively terrified of them, but whenever I have too think to hard about anything that has the potential to kill me, I get a little freaked out. This leads to my many, many fears, as most things, I'm convinced, have the potential to kill me.

I am spending too much time on this relatively inane part of the adventure and should probably get to the boats. So, long story short, despite the terrifically high odds of death, Anna and I made it safely across and eventually arrived at her house.

This is the view from Anna's house. In the distance you can see her pier and boat. Now, boats are also something that, if you really think about it, could kill me, but I do my best to limit my fear of them.

After gorging ourselves on cheese, crackers, salsa, endless fruit, etc. provided by Anna's mom, we geared up to finally head out on the boat.

Here is my first mistake of the weekend. While applying sunscreen, I neglected to put any on my face. Why did I make this foolish choice, you ask? Well, I am a person who usually wears at least some foundation almost every day, so my face is generally protected. If I am going to be doing an outside activity for a long amount of time (hiking, running, etc.) I'll also often put on a hat to keep my ridiculous head of hair out of my face. Plus, my bangs generally protect at least the forehead section of my face, if my hair is worn down (or even, generally, in a ponytail. Rarely do I go for the pinned back bangs).

None of these things happened Friday morning. Who puts on makeup when you're going on a boat? And wearing a hat or keeping my bangs down seemed extra foolish when the wind would be whipping across my face.

So while Anna, her mom and I zoomed across creeks and rivers with reckless abandon, I rejoiced in the tan I was surely getting. Only about halfway through the day - specifically when Anna and I switched from the speedboat to a smaller kayak/paddle boat/sail boat combo (it was ridiculous, specifically the sail part) did I truly recognize the mistake I had made.

For I was now the proud of owner of what I have charmingly named "epic face sunburn." My good friend epic face sunburn took up most of my forehead, a bit of my nose and the rosiest sections of my cheeks (made extra rosy by their extreme sun damage). With sunglasses, my face was simply awash in red. But without, I was truly a sight to behold: the rare blonde-haired, pink-faced raccoon.

You can mostly see epic face sunburn in this photo, taken Saturday. Obviously, by then I'd learned the lesson about hats.

I'm certain that everyone at dinner that night was secretly mocking my ridiculous appearance, but that's okay because I'd spent the day on a boat. I may regret the lack of sunscreen down the road if I get skin cancer, and we can all return to this blog entry and laugh at me. But, BOATS.

Saturday brought more of the same, albeit with the addition of sunscreen and hats. We also boated to a waterfront bar, which was awesome because everyone was super sweaty and a mess and in swimsuits and no one cared. So that was great, because I was super sweaty and a mess and in a swimsuit.

Then Saturday night we caught crabs! SO INTENSE! This one crab fought Anna mightily when we tried to take it out of the basket with tongs (seriously, this thing had  a plan). So we left it for her mom - the solution to all of life's problems (have your parents deal with it).

After delicious, delicious crabs we watched a movie and I pretty much passed out, drained from all the sun and boating and day drinking (there was a lot of that Friday and Saturday).

All in all, a great way to celebrate America.

Up next: the adventure continues with my quest for the most tickets at a child's arcade. Steel yourselves for my awesomeness.