15 crewmen came aboard Carrier’s cruise to the Islands of Adventure.  All returned safely.

Itinerary

After a few welcome merkins we departed for Flagpole Island (located just off the coast of the Gastonia Library).

SSH x20

Everyone agreed to stop at each sand bar (speed bump) for 3 complementary churkins.

Cruise continues clockwise around the Library coast to Long Island where most everyone participated in some lively karaoke to the other end of the island, then we continued the fun with some Michael Jackson moves, which for most looked like the backwards run to the first part of Long Island.  From this end the beach was wide open again, so we got in our low riders and lunged forward and backward down the beach.

We were done with Long Island until the next trip, and headed for Holy H Island, named by the pirates of Gastonia after the place they never wanted to go, but today the cruise veered off for a nature outing.  First on the beach of Holy H Island we discovered crabbing, then it got real scary around the other side when we discovered there were bears.  We could get off Holy H Island quick enough.

We ended up a small deserted island with one lonely tree on it.  There was nothing there to do but lazily plank walk around the entire island with our feet in the water and our hands on the beach.  Oh, how we were ready to be rescued from what we called Spot Island.

When rescued from Spot Island we immediately returned to port at Flagpole Island.  But since we paid for a 2 day cruise, we kept our clothes on and went around the islands again after doing some odd dance called the Imperial Walker.  How fun was that !

Obviously it was not fun at all, so to liven up the trip, we had a guest visit from our favorite Jack Webb.  He kept everyone entertained so much they were falling on the floor and raising their hands over their heads hysterically.  If they weren’t raising their arms, there were a few that had such a great time they were sprawled out flat on the ground, and couldn’t even raise their arms to applaud how great a time they were having.

The cruise director originally thought “we will probably just do the cruise bit the whole time”, but very clearly, there were early signs of ship jumpers in our cruise party, so we went back inland for the balance of our time.

Back on drive land, we discovered the natives were very hospitable by providing a nice grouping of picnic tables to rest our feet on, but before we went on our picnics we went through the miniature obstacle course.  When through the obstacle course, we spent some time with doing brain exercises combining numbers that add to 7, while stepping on the furniture and almost lying on the ground except our feet were still on the furniture.  You never know what goes on amongst a group of picnic tables well hidden at the back of a parking lot behind a museum, although if you look carefully you could find evidence of some of those activities.  Someone was at least being careful.

Next up was a short exploratory visit to the trails with stops along the way to take a few dips – sorry the pool was no where to be found.  We were warned of the dead end we might find so we simply went up and down the same hill until it was time to return to wince we came.  To get back we played one last memory game which was to line up by age, followed by acting like we were back in the day when Indians roamed these same trails but were being chased out by the English settlers.  We raced out of the woods, to where we had a short visit with Mary, Peter, and Peter’s twin Parker.

With the cruise over, we said our good byes and returned to the real world.

Announcements:

Turns out there are other F3 workouts just up the road, so check the website and get your arse to other workouts.

The Fort takes the lead the next two Saturdays, so come back yourself, bring a couple of friends who you know you can run circles around them because you now have a cool F3 nickname, and they don’t.

It was an honor to Q at GasHouse.  Anyone that asks me – I tell them it’s one of the best AOs I have seen.  I love hearing when new guys recognize the potential of a trail or a bench, or the side of a building.  I look forward to coming back to GasHouse to see what the guys here make of it.

Carrier