Tuesday, May 13, 2008

I made shade



There's a beach not too many people know the location of. It's just a trail off the side of the road that goes about 1/3 of a mile back to a beach covered in dead trees, driftwood, and the occasional peice of junk that's washed up. It's called Black Rock Beach by everyone I know who knows of it, though the name is something of a misnomer, the black rocks are more of a hard rock-like soil. In any event, there's not a whole lot of shade, and I like to make things, so when I went out to the beach a few weeks ago I decided to collect driftwood and make a place in the shade.

The sun was out and burning hot by the time I'd biked down to the beach and as I walked near the top of the beach I saw many peices of lumber I guess have washed or rusted off of people's docks and found there way to the beach on some high tide. I decided since I wasn't going to swim in the still frigid water I would make a place to get out of the sun, a little tiki hut over the side of a half-fallen tree. I gathered any long wood I could find and started to make a nice little frame, but the more I built, the farther I had to go for more material. This led to some interesting wondering around behind sandy underbrush and more than one box turtle giving me an odd look from inside it's den, including the one that I didn't realize my tiki hut was a neighbor to. I called him Yurtle and tried to keep the noise down after I saw him.

I covered the frame with the reeds that had washed up along with whatever else I could find. It was pretty cool in a swiss family robinson sort of way. I like to make things like this so I can tell myself if I ever landed on a deserted island I'd do ok.

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