The Brookston Family Blog
• • • • •

I woke up early at the campsite, and so did Alice, so we went for a walk to let Sarah and Porter — and the rest of the camp — sleep. By the time we got back the camp had started to slowly come alive. We had several hours to enjoy the day before it was time to head back to civilization.

Alice on our Sunday morning walk.

Porter and Alice play on our tent.

We took the rainfly off and Alice played with the see-through netting in the tent.

Sam was on the outside pushing in as Alice pushed out, which made her laugh uncontrollably.

Alice delighted to be able to feel Sami’s face through the tent.

Then Sam took the kids for a last wagon ride.

Okay, here’s a weird one, my mouth is poised on the brink of bizarre fame … well then again, maybe not. Anyway, The Flaming Carrot is an old independent black and white comic book about a guy with a carrot for a head with flame coming out of the top. It was a pretty funny comic in its day, and I always loved his motto or tagline, “Fortune Favors the Bold!” The character said is all the time and I always liked it. I used to have a t-shirt of it back in the mid-80s. So why bring it up now? Because several months ago my old Canon camera had broken and I was playing around with it after I finally got it working again. I was looking for a subject while waiting for Porter’s bus to arrive and not seeing anything to shoot, I turned the camera on myself and shot a picture of my mouth wide open using the macro function. I thought the results were pretty funny but I didn’t think I would do anything with the photo. But Sarah told me I should “be brave” and post the picture anyway. It was then that the Flaming Carrot’s words resonated in my head and so I posted it on my photoblog back in December.

Click on the photo to see the original photoblog post.

Anyway, I thought that would be the end of it, but I just got an e-mail from some young guys in England with a garage band called Multi Purpose Kompost. They recently completed work on a video for their new song, The Edible Song. And they wrote to tell me they used my mouth in their new video. You can see it at Google Video. It’s pretty funny and mercifully short, since it relies heavily on Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. If you want to know more about the band, they are listed on MySpace.

So you see fortune does really favor the bold. If I hadn’t posted my big mouth at Sarah’s urging then I wouldn’t be in a music video. Now that’s fame. Who knows what could come of it. Breath mint ads, perhaps? Dental advertising? And did those teeth in ancient times walk upon England’s mountain green …. [channeling Monty Python again.]

One of the most popular pastimes while visiting ther beach was throwing stones into the ocean. Those poor stones stones that have been working for years, decades and perhaps even centuries to get to the shore are unceremoniously thrown back into the water where their long struggle to return to shore will begin again. But it will take them many generations to return to the spot where they once rested in the sun. But it sure is fun. Besides, the rocks probably deserve it. We only throw back the bad ones.

Everyone is infected with rock-throwing fever.

But Porter raises it to an artform.

His pitching arm is coming along nicely.

And his distance is improving greatly.

Although he does still need a lot of work on his accuracy. He accidently beaned Sam in the back of the head with a — luckily — small stone. Happily, she wasn’t hurt too badly — maybe just a bump — but that was the end of Porter’s stone throwing for the weekend. He felt pretty bad about it afterwards.

Our campsite over the weekend was just a short walk to the beach, which was a few hundred yards below us. Groups of us took trips down to the beach on both Saturday and Sunday. There wasn’t much of a beach, especially at high tide, but there was enough to take a little stroll and view the bay unobstructed from a great vantage point.

Suzanne and Sarah chat while Alice plays with the stones on the beach, her second favorite pastime after playing with water.

Porter plays with stones under the watchful eyes of Corey and Nikki (who’s all but hidden behind him).

Alice tentatively plays closer to the water, while Sarah keeps her safe.

Sam, Porter and Kelly stroll the beach.

While Alice scoops up handfuls of small rocks.

Sam and Alice relax on a large boulder on the beach.