Beauty and the Beast

Day 53, May 24, 1997

Oregon Dunes

0 km

Another day in the dunes, this time laden with cameras, lunch, and gortex jackets. It took twice as long to reach the ocean this time, because I was taking photographs constantly for nearly two miles. We waded through the deflation plain, this one drier than the last, but stinking of decay as we squooshed through the thick, black, mud. As we came out the other side a large pile of debris on the right side of the path greeted us like the skull of an angry pirate. It looked as though a working party had cleared the beach of garbage and left if for pick-up.

We walked along the beach in bare feet. Fragments of mollusk shells, sand dollars, crab and shrimp shells littered the tide line. Ralph found me an intact whelk shell. On our way back, Ralph began picking up flotsam and jetsam. By the time we had walked a mile along the beach, we had collected more garbage then we could carry. Bottles, glass, plastic containers, wood, doors, rope, fishing line, Styrofoam floats. Ralph tied as much of it as he could together, and I carried the rest as a precarious bundle. Me balancing, Ralph dragging, we took it to the dump site we had passed on our way out.

I sunk to my knees before I had a chance to step back on firmer ground. Ralph began dancing around on the edge in a panic, making himself begin to sink. I don't know whether he was worried about me, or the cameras around my neck, which were now just a foot from the sand. I wasn't worried however, called out to him to relax, and carefully began to remove my right leg. I knew I had to spread my weight, so I kneeled on the sand...and sunk to half way up my thigh. Now I was a little concerned! I managed to crawl out on my knees without getting hurt or getting the cameras wet, but I was caked in mud from my toes to my shorts!

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