After the redwoods the GPS decided to try and kill me again, attempting to send me up dirt roads clearly labeled, “not a through way” and then telling me to turn left into a tree. There was no road at all where she claimed there was one. This resulted in me being creative in my attempt to find an exit and in doing so I somehow stumbled onto a beach with a number of little structures, half buried in the sand. It was a little fort or something. I’m not sure. It was however low tide and the sea seemed so far away.

I was hungry and tired and in no way in the mood for walking on a cold windy beach, trudging through the sand, in search of invisible shells. It was indeed nippy and to make matters worse my shoes had worn out to the point they felt like tacks stabbing into the back of my heals with each step. I already lost some skin to this degradation and it didn’t take long before I found myself barefootin’ again.

The beach was beautiful, filled with all sorts of bleached redwood driftwood. Still it was windy and cold. I didn’t really start to enjoy it until we found a dead something washed up. All that was left of it was the bones of it’s torso. The hips were backwards facing and the scapula was no less confusing. I theorized it to be a bird but if it was a bird it was an enormous bird. Do seals have backwards facing pelvises? I don’t know anything about marine mammals, maybe it was something like that. ***Further research revealed the bone to be that of a baby seal.

I walked farther up the beach and I was doing fairly OK until I realized my bandana had blown away and was nowhere to be found, leaving my hair to whip wildly around my face. I couldn’t see a thing any more and was getting increasingly cranky. I didn’t find any shells, only some pretty colorful rocks we pocketed and promised to deposit in a future fish tank. My purse kept falling off my shoulder and it felt heavier than usual. I threw the damn thing and screamed. I didn’t feel any better after this unusual fit. Suffice to say by the time I reached the car I was just ready to book it out of there. After a cereal bar I was once again returned to a world I could deal with. Hypoglycemia’s ever so much fun, randomly throwing me into hyper, aggressive/agitated, or weepy moods I find intensely hard to control. I think if it wasn’t for that I probably would have enjoyed that beach… it was rather like a desert island, hidden, private, and very neat.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!