Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Midway, Day 60

Day 60/Day 5.  This place is amazing.  There are albatross everywhere - approximately a million and a half of them.  And monk seals.  And ducks.  And canaries.  Not sure how the latter got here, but they are speedy.  A night walk gives opportunities to duck and dodge the petrels, centipedes and little side walking crabs.  The night I got here the sky was totally clear and you could see stars forever.  It's been cloudy and windy and rainy since then, although the sun has come out today and looks like it might stick around for the afternoon.  My endangered species count is up to four, including the one short tail albatross on the island.  Rumor has it there's another one elsewhere within the Atoll, but they haven't found each other yet.  I could watch the field of albatross for hours - they're dancing and taking off and landing, and singing and talking and grooming each other.  It's fascinating.

Midway itself is pretty interesting too.  At one point it was home to 5000 folks from the US Navy.  There's a theater and a bowling alley and the All Hands Club, where the pool tables and music stage are still up and running.  There's a little store that's open for an hour every evening and you can pick up the essentials, like toothpaste and whiskey.  We saw the library last night, which just seems to be a give and take storage room of books, DVD's and VHS tapes.  Adam's room is in "Charlie Hotel" which was once the barracks, but has been redone.  So a pair of rooms that used to hold four to eight dudes has been turned into a one bedroom suite.  The "Clipper House" is where we get our meals every day - the food is phenomenal and the Thai staff works their butts off to make sure everyone is well fed.  They bring out a plate of meat & veggies for me at nearly every meal that has been made without soy sauce (and therefore gluten free).  Add a little rice, and voila, dinner and/or lunch.  We've been sitting outside watching the ocean roll in.  The other day I noticed that the waves looked like they were breaking all the way out at the horizon and Adam pointed out that was the opposite end of the atoll.  Generally it's only a few hours between "wow's" for me.  The Officer's Club is a little bar right on the beach, and the site of an epic cribbage ass kicking the other night (the second time I've ever beaten the boy).

Plenty of pictures to come - might even warrant their own page here.  It's highly unlikely I'll be able to get any real work done this afternoon and will probably need to get out and explore.  And, of course, it's been just wonderful to be with Adam again.  I had first date jitters on the plane ride over, but it didn't take long to fall back into each other and into a sort-of routine.  I'm about to head out for a run - 40 minutes and I'll be able to cover the whole island, in a figure-8 route.

More to come, I promise.   :)

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