This Sunday I took the train all the way down to Long Branch to hang out with my friend Aki and her fiance. It was totally worth it.
An unexpectedly dangerous lighthouse
After picking up some pizza slices, we headed over to this lighthouse, where we sat on a bench and had a sort of picnic. It was hot and there were bugs, but there was also wine, courtesy of Aki, so I didn’t care too much.
Next we looked at some cool lighthouse stuff, then climbed to the top of one of the towers. Aki and I went all the way to the top. There was a little window that was open and what looked like an area you could stand on. Aki went right out, and suddenly I noticed the area had no grate, just wide open railing a body could easily fall through.
I said, “Should you be out there?” Then it started to hit me as to what a dangerous situation that was (luckily she came right back in), and even more so when I went down one level and could see how wide open it was from below. There were also two kids up there with us, and I told them a couple of times, “Please don’t go out there, I beg you.” Their dad was one level below, but not close enough to me. (They were fine and didn’t go out there.)
I told the girl at the desk downstairs, and at first she didn’t really understand what I was saying. She went up to check, and when we were in the tiny museum slash shop, she came in and made a beeline toward the older women behind the desk and told them what happened in a kind of panicked voice. I made eye contact and she said, “They told us about it,” and thanked us (although it was really just me). I knew it didn’t seem right! Aki’s fiance and I kept teasing her afterward about how she immediately did the most dangerous thing.
A park and a hike
After that we headed out to this park. They had what was a bunker for housing weapons, including what was essentially a really huge gun, during World War II. We walked through it, which was pretty creepy. It’s just this long, dark, empty hallway. There was water everywhere — dripping off the ceiling, in puddles on the floor, and I thought, Did they hose this place down? We asked the guy sitting outside and turns out it was all condensation from the humidity.
After that we went on a hike. At first Aki’s fiance and I were against the “black diamond trail” and we just did something easy. However, that was uncovered, i.e., in the sun, and not near the water. We took a shortcut to see some view (there wasn’t much of one), and Aki said that was the black diamond level. It turned out not to be hard at all, vigorous but not difficult. By the end we were all very sweaty.
A beach and a brewery
After that we tried to find a beach. The first one was small and rocky. It wasn’t that great so we left and went to a much better one. It was free since it was after 4:30 and it wasn’t too crowded. It was nice sitting there drinking wine, snacking, and chatting.
It was pretty cool and breezy, but it was also very, very sticky. I actually felt fine, but after a while her fiance was like, “It’s so sticky.” We had been there long enough anyway and headed to our next destination.
That was a brewery. By then I had had basically one and a half glasses of wine so I just had a three-ounce serving of their stout. It was pretty good. Her fiance got the summer ale (full serving) and a giant bowl of poutine with roast beef. Oh my God so good. I had several bites, which were more than enough for dinner.