Fire Island Forever?

Absence from Fire Island restores my appreciation from the natural beauty of the setting, the architecture and the campiness.  Not that I ever took any of these for granted.  Light, edibles and long walks help, too.

The Pines

Despite the beach reclamation project three years ago, it seems like Fire Island may be among the places most vulnerable to rising oceans in the United States.

Fire Island National Seashore

A hand-painted map at Sailor's Haven omits both the Pines and Cherry Grove.

Cherry Grove

72 Bay

Although I have stayed at Victor's house in the past, I never used the hot tub before this visit.

 

Thom and I used our night alone at the house to have drinks and appetizers on the upper deck at sunset.

It wasn't much by Fire Island standards but we could see that other people had gathered to watch it on the dock in the harbor.

Until next time.

More Pines Guest Stays:

• 72 Bay (2022)
• Pines Thanksgiving (2022)
• Seven Uh-Oh (2023)

72 Bay

Can you tell I was happy to be back?  Victor invited us to join him at his house for several days.  I hadn't been a guest in the Pines since 1987, the summer I auditioned for my first share.

 

That likely was long before this hunk was sculpted.  Victor told us the model is now a dentist in Pittsburgh.  But his ageless, bronze avatar will always have the Pines.  Just don't tell anybody that he and his white-hot brethren were commissioned by Abercrombie & Fitch.

I'd never seen 72 Bay in the morning.

The fiber art hanging in the bedroom that Thom and I shared captured the same view from a different angle in the evening.

There's always a party going on at Victor's house.  This mostly millennial, well-bred crew stopped by two nights running.  Victor calls it "force multiplication."  And that's why I dubbed him Master Spinner.

We alta cockers had a poison ivy scare on our return walk from Sunken Forest.

A new queen reigns at the east end of Bay Walk.

And Trailblazers Park, with the Pines's only water fountain,  is a new (and long overdue) addition to the harbor!  

Marsha "Pay It No Mind" Johnson

Sylvia Rivera

Thanks Victor!  Au revoir.

More Pines Guest Stays:

• Pines Thanksgiving (2022)
• Seven Uh-Oh (2023)
• Fire Island Forever (2023)