Well, I did it!

What an exhausting day! Overall, it was so great! I saw so many funny things and people. And I got gifts! I need more exclamation points!

I barely slept last night, worried about the day, worried about a sick cat, worried about being worried. So on about 4 hours of sleep and only one day off, I was up at 5:15 and out of the house by 6:10. And of course I was 20 minutes early. Which was ok, I knew most of the start up procedures, and was almost done with it all by the time the boss showed up. We didn't have any cars or bikes for at least an hour, maybe longer. And even then, traffic was a trickle until 11 or so. The boss only stayed for 2 and a half hours! He left at 9:30. I don't know how long he stayed on the other guy's first days, but I know it was longer than that. I'm very proud of the fact that he had that much faith in me.

One the boss left, the fun began. And I'm just going to list them out, cause they're all so random and silly.

• A 60something year old couple drove on, and both got out of the car and introduced themselves to me. They said that the wife's 92 year old father recently died, and he wanted his ashes scattered from the ferry. Which I know is possibly not quite legal, but I didn't particularly care. So we went out to the middle of the river and stopped the boat, and the dumped him overboard. They were smiling, I was smiling. When they were saying how odd a request it was, I laughed and said that all families were different. In my family, my gramma's ashes are taken around to everyone's Christmas celebrations, and she gets put under the tree. Gramma loved Christmas. They thought that was the cutest thing ever. And they took my picture.
• A guy gave me a jar of homemade raspberry syrup! We were joking about alternate methods of payment, and I said they could always go get me a shake from Burgerville, and he reached behind him and said, "here, this is even better!" 
• Someone gave me a handful of fresh picked blueberries
• A super sweet couple runs a kayak tour company. They came across this morning, then they kayaked past the boat, then drove back across at the end of the day. They were so sweet! And I want to ask them next week about doing a kayak day trip. Anyone want to join me? Put in at BV, probably get out at Independence or Salem. Here they are kayaking by (sorry the color is funky):

• A touring group of Mazda fancy convertible sports cars came by. It's a 6 car ferry, but the cars were tiny enough that all 7 of them fit. They were so hilarious. And they took pictures of me. One guy had been a navigator in the navy, and was very impressed that it was my first solo day. Here's a bad shot of them: 

• A carload of goofy tourists came by, doing a combination wine tour/covered bridge tour. So of course I told them they had to go to the most lovely and bucolic of all wineries, Harris Bridge. And they were so enchanted by my description that they promptly set their GPS for it. They took a picture of me too. Seriously people? I'm not that interesting to look at!!!
• A guy drove across with a rearview mirror attached to his glasses. Like the ones you see on bike helmets? He had one on his everyday glasses. It cracked me up. I guess nobody's sneaking up on him! 
• A wonderful friend, Janita, came by. My first friendly visitor! She came bearing yarn, too! It was so much fun to show her around and see everything through her eyes.
• Around 5, just as the traffic was slowing, my mom and stepdad drove up, bearing a blackberry shake from burgerville! They stayed for over an hour and a half, and it was so wonderful. Traffic was slow enough that I could show them everything, sit down and hang out with them, and also show off by doing perfect landings. My stepdad was so damn proud, it was the sweetest thing ever. 

So basically, I'm beyond exhausted. I stood for the vast majority of the day. Even though I only had 150 cars, they came in ones and twos most of the day, so for about 5 hours, it was almost constant back and forth. So I stood almost all day. I'm amazingly proud of myself, look at what I've managed to do! As Janita said today, nobody would have ever thought this would have been my life, if you'd have asked me a year ago. It's so odd and interesting and really fun.