Tuesday was Hooker’s birthday and in honor of the day of his birth, we got a ferry and travel two hours off the coast of Massachusetts to Nantucket. I don’t think we rested the entire time were were there.

As soon as we were island-side, we took a cab to the house we were staying at and immediately hopped in the Kia Sportage that was so lovingly lent to us. I was excited to drive around Nantucket … until I looked into the car. STICK SHIFT. I don’t know how to drive stick, so I begrudgingly threw the keys at Hooker. And then he threw them right back and told me to get behind the wheel.

I backed the car out and drove to the end of the road. Without stalling once. Not only that, but later in the day I drove for about another 20 minutes, through real streets with other cars, without stalling. May I point out that I have never driven stick before. Clearly, it was meant to be.

The first day we checked out a bunch of galleries downtown. I don’t remember the names of any of them (very helpful I know), but there was only one that really stuck out for both me and Hooker. It was huge – two levels – and it was on Main Street. Go check it out.

After a visit downtown and a lemonade at the Juice Bar (yum), we hopped in the car for a long drive.

Let me tell you, weird/unfortunate things always happen to me and Hooker when we are together. And even when we’re not. We’re kind of followed by bad luck. Which is why this particular day was pretty god damn amazing. First of all, we heard later on that it POURED on the mainland. The sky was gray on Nantucket, but the temperature was perfect and it didn’t rain at all.

After a bit of a drive, we pulled over into a small parking area next to a bridge. Where we found crabbing supplies. So obviously, we went crabbing. And lured a crab all the way up on the bridge. It was pretty awesome. After I drove us up the road and pulled over to another random parking area. This time there were two chains separating the area from the road, which we hopped. And discovered the most beautiful bamboo forest ever.

We ran through it for a good half hour. It was amazing. Then by pure coincidence we were running through some bushes across the way from the bamboo forest and saw a tupperware container. As we got closer I realized what it was: a Geocaching Prize! We left a few items, signed the book and took a small plastic Indian toy.

That night we had Matt’s birthday dinner at The Brotherhood of Thieves. We had oysters and lobster BLTs and fish tacos. It was delicious.

After dinner we stayed up late, played some Scrabble (despite a terrific start, I lost miserably), and enjoyed some beers and cigars out on the deck until we passed out from exhaustion.

The next day, we headed back into town to check out more galleries and take another drive.

Day two the weather was sunny, clear blue skies and perfect. We just moseyed around town until it was time to take the ferry back.

All in all it was a wonderful trip. I took about 300 photos over the two days which I’ve looked at about 5 times through already. I want to go back already, and if you get a chance to visit, I highly recommend it.