We take a lot of trips to the beach during our free time. The closest beach is the university owned one at the bottom of the hill called John Brewer's Bay. While swimming we can see this huge rock at the top of the mountain behind us. We always look at it and talk about going and checking it out, but two days ago we actually did! If you click on the picture you can see the rock at the top.

From the bottom looking up at the rock

From the top looking down on Brewer's

Only a couple of us went: Hannah (New Hampshire), Josh (not NSE, Missouri), Anna (Indiana), Sam (Massachusetts), Will (Massachusetts), and Nate (Colorado). We left around 10 in the morning after getting some breakfast in us. There wasn't much of a trail. We mostly followed our intuitions and tried to not get off the rocks. The rocks were our path in a way. They eventually lead us to the base of the mountain, but not after passing the old hideaway, a cave, and tons of thorny plants. Seriously, everything had a thorn. And the worst part was the last little bit where the trail ended and we had to bushwhack through all those thorns to the top of the rock. The view was worth it.

The crop of buildings on the left that looks like they make a circle is the university. The airport is in the background. Behind that is Water Island, and the beach in the middle is the school-owned John Brewer's Bay

On the left is the view from the top of the rock looking East. The middle picture is from the top of the NSE students who hiked (Hannah, Nate, Will, Anna, Sam, Me! Josh took the picture since he isn't in NSE). The right is what the "path" looked like when we were coming down (Josh is the guy in the white).

It took us about an hour and a half to climb up and about and hour to climb back down. On the way home we passed a local who could tell we had just been hiking. He told us he was 66 years old and never once been up there because there were some scary stories and rumors associated with it. Something about people going missing. This was unnerving, but I didn't experience anything sketchy while climbing. When we got back we ate some lunch, put on sunscreen and went to the beach for a couple of hours.

That night after I got out of the shower my RA told me my permanent room was ready, so I finished the night by moving two doors down and setting up my new room. The lock still doesn't work, but I'm happy regardless. Baby steps. The view of the city from my room is incredible. Every night I get the pleasure of just staring out into the lights of town. The sun wakes me up at 7:30 every morning and I don't even complain. I'll put up some pictures of my place later.