The photo above is the view out the window to the porch of the cottage my cousin and her husband were renting for their 2 week stay on the island. They have a land line phone (cell coverage is very spotty) and a propane stove and refrigerator, but no electricity. Light is provided by kerosene lamps or candles. There is electricity all over the place on the island, but it costs about 10x what it does on the mainland. Plus there is the expense of putting in wiring in older homes. The Vaughn House where they are staying was built in the 1700’s. The expense is also the reason there are no street lights anywhere on the island, so when the sun goes down you better have a flashlight or the full moon to find your way back to where you are staying.
Last night we went the Cracker Barrel across the street from our HIE to have breakfast for dinner. It was 6 o’clock in the evening and the place was crawling with Hokies on their way home from a football game. We even had to wait 20 minutes to get seated*. As we sat there waiting on our food I could barely hear myself think for all the chatter and dinnerware noises. When I could get a thought in edgewise, all I could get was that there were more people in that restaurant right then, than we saw in our whole two days on Monhegan Island.
*Cracker Barrel is the only place we really wait like that.
When I woke up this morning at 5:00 AM and got up to use the restroom I was alone in in the bed of Room 303 in the Holiday Inn Express in Roanoke, VA. Donna was not in the bathroom either. I turned on the light and she wasn’t in the chair in the corner of the room either. I was alone. My first thought was she had woken up early and gone for a walk, but dismissed that when I looked outside and it was still pitch black. My second thought was she had been abducted by aliens. My third and more likely scenario is that she was curled up on a couch in the lobby sleeping. I have a nice loud snore sometimes which is fine if she gets asleep before me, but if not, then one of us goes to the other bedroom in our house.
Donna was actually across the hall in Room 302. I started snoring, her usual tactics of getting me to be quiet, poking, prodding or talking me into rolling over didn’t work, so she went downstairs at midnight and rented a second room.
