Bacon on the Beach

I went up to Deception Pass yesterday. For efficiency in reading, it rates poorly, since I read about one hour out of seven. On the other hand, it is a beautiful place for being inefficient in. I nearly turned the day-trip into a camping trip, but found myself too poltroonish to stay overnight with nothing but a blanket, a car, and two books.

The picture above is just some minor trail in the park, which at more than 4,000 acres has quite a few long trails. I love green tunnels and bowers and for once had remembered my camera. Just a few feet farther down this trail I startled a small snake, who made the strangest noise at me, like a loud, yawning hiss. Like Professor Savant, I walk around looking up, so the snake got back into his hole while I saw only a blur. I stopped to look in his hole, hoping to find him glaring at me, but all I got to see was a blackish-blue tail with a yellow stripe.

I was delighted to find thistles in bloom, of course. Die Disteln uber alles in der Welt (thanks, babelfish). This area of the park has a lot of barbecues and picnic tables and is next to a parking lot, so it had the most people, but still not more than twenty. For the most part everyone was quietly busy with his own entertainment, but for one older man holding court straddle-legged on a picnic table, a strained bathing suit barely a fig-leaf, his great rolls piebald in red and white. A smaller, younger couple sat opposite on a bench, looking stunned as he shouted some long story about the opposition he faced at work, with frequent recourse, despite the grizzled stubble on his balding head, to fucking this and fucking that. It was only about three years ago that I first understood that the loud and obnoxious would never grow out of it. Had I met this man earlier, I might have learned faster.

After a few miles of disoriented hiking, I lucked into this beach, where I read for an hour. I wish I lived near enough beaches to do this more often, but unfortunately the beaches in the lower Sound are not so quiet or even accessible. The slight wind off the sea made the pages stick together; though the air did not feel damp to me, I suppose it must have been. I finally finished the "device," or quasi-dramatic court entertainment, called "Of tribute; or, giving that which is due," which proved much harder to stay with than The New Atlantis. The dozen pages of praise for Elizabeth were exhausting, full of references to recent events that sent me to the endnotes, but the unceasing flattery was even more wearying. It was possibly worth it, though, to find that he praised his Queen's physical attributes in some detail, including her breasts.