Want To Give It a Try? June 30. Day 9. Part 2

Continued from Want To Give It a Try? June 30. Day 9. Part 1

After I hiked down from the top of Cape Meares (which also involved some roadwalk, this time with cars) I walked a stretch of beach from the north end of Oceanside to Netarts. I was hoping to get the courage to ask someone with a boat for a ride across to Netarts Spit. At one point I saw a man with a small blue inflatable paddle boat. "Are you having fun?" He asked me. I said I was but I was also hoping to find someone to give me a ride across but I would probably have to find someone with a bigger boat. I asked if he was having fun (he was) and what he was doing (hunting for crabs and clams). He said "if I had a bigger boat I would give you a ride." Then as I walked away he called "want to give it a try?"  

We then figured out that between me and my pack and him we would be 100 pounds over the weight limit for the boat - not a great idea. But, I told him, he had made my day by offering. 

And he did. It's hard to explain how happy I felt. Just that I had managed however indirectly to ask. And he had wanted to say yes. Of course breathing in all that cool ocean air has a great effect on mood too. (Car fumes alas have the opposite effect.)

I didn't quite have the nerve to call out to one of the boats in the water and I never saw anyone with a boat onshore, so I ended up doing the roadwalk which was a real disappointment. Next time if there is a similar situation I will call out across the water. I love the way the trail pushes me to do things out of my comfort zone. (On the unsafe but beautiful side of the fence - asking other humans for help is far scarier and more beautiful to me even than sitting on that narrow Spit of land with such deep drops into lethal beauty on both sides. )

So I had a pretty long road walk and arrived about 5pm at Cape Lookout State Oark campground. The hiker/biker walk-in sites (everything else is reservation only and full) are very beautiful here. Lots of trees, very near the ocean. I will sleep tonight to the lullaby of the waves. 

May you also sleep to the music of the ocean. Tomorrow is some road walk again but maybe a long beach walk as well - depending on whether the tide will be low enough for me to ford the outlet of Sand Lake. That should give a little excitement to the day. 

Goodnight. May we dream of waves. 

Ps I'm surprised there are no photos in this section but I just checked and there aren't any I really badly want to include so we will let it go as is. 

Ps (again). Here is one after all. I often have conversations with trees. I feel as if they listen to me, and also as if they speak. But I have not thought of them as watching over me, or felt held in their gaze. This photo ( I can't remember the number and who really cares? Except of course me who gets an illusion of order and control from numbering photos) - and the tree art it shows - helped me to imagine the trees watching me and even our meeting eye to eye.