Summer's End On Camano Island

We were a merry band of five. Including a tiny Maltese/Something-I-don't-know-what- Mutt, who's name was Spike.

As we walked down the steep steps of the lake house to the water Gerard mentioned that all the stairs he built were actually ladders that he secured into the ground. It must have been many ladders then because it was a very long ways down. Long enough to make you catch your breath.

It was twilight and the heavy rain had finally stopped. The air was so rich and thick with the scent of earth it almost seemed surreal. It was a strong, clean, sweet smell and I couldn't drink in enough breaths.

The last step down to the sandy beach arrived and I jumped down to the shore in my pink rubber boots. When I looked up, I couldn't move for a moment. To the guys I knew it seemed expected. They were probably used to this view I'm sure, but to an urban girl who grew up in the heart of NJ I thought that I somehow fell into heaven.

The water didn't even lap at the shore, it was that still. As if someone had put a plate glass on top of the sea and it looked as though you could walk out onto it.

Although it was small, it was for sure their own private beach and as I looked to the left the sun was setting in sherbet colored swirls of pink, peach, yellow, orange and just a touch of purple. It wasn't florescent. They weren't loud colors. The sky was not screaming for attention, but it's understated beauty is what drew my gaze and I imagined that if love could show itself in colors, then that sky was revealing all to me.

I engaged in conversation but kept reverting my eyes back to the swirling colors that held me captivated as though a handsome man where trying to get my attention. Yes. It was truly that brilliant.

Then we noticed that off to the right in the opposite direction of the sunset was a rainbow. Not just any rainbow, but one that curved straight into the water so it's reflection bounced off of the still, glass like surface and doubled it's size.

At the same time as I tried to take it all in, a sea lion popped its head to the surface a ways out from the shore. My friend Evan had been skimming rocks that went so far out it must have caused the creature to think it was a fish so he stuck around awhile to catch the show. I watched his head bob in the water and then his back would pop out too until he'd go back under only to emerge another time in the hopes of catching a bite.

After many a rock skipping show with "No less then 10 skips", the guys hauled out a row boat complete with ores and life jackets for all. "Really?" I said. "We're going to go out on the boat? In the open water? I, I hope I don't get sea-sick." I stammered. They laughed at the city girl. "No Colleen. I don't think you have a chance at getting sea-sick on water that is as still as this." I hadn't thought of that. So I hopped in the boat along with the guys and the little dog and we shoved off into the water.

It was a delightful experience. In fact, it may have been my very first time in a row boat ever. I'd been in a canoe many times with my father on the lake in Vermont, but never a row boat, in open water. I wanted to get up and do a little "I-love-row- boats-dance", but that would have been a bad idea. So I didn't do that.

We talked and laughed and I think they liked the new girl. (Even if she was an urban girl, she was a country girl at heart.) We watched the Blue Herring fly over our heads and eventually rowed back to shore where my friends had finally showed up.

We spent the evening lounging, which is only respectable at a lake front house, eating and finished it off with my favorite, a blazing fire pit around which we all told stories and made S'mores. But I had to tell mine standing on top of a large tree stump next to the fire, while I made dramatic expressions with my face and hands and laughed louder than anyone else.