Go with the Flow

Our annual pilgrimage to the coast coincided with the first warm weather we've had since... oh, last August? This year we broke with tradition: instead of staying at Iron Springs, which we've loved dearly even as it has steadily gone downhill over the last 12 years, we tried a place called Ocean Cliff just a few miles up the road. Our new digs boasted many creature comforts lacking at Iron Springs, plus the same glorious views and proximity to the beach -- where we found several intriguing installations.


With a few simple repairs to a ruptured dam, we recreated a lagoon at the point where a small creek trickled out onto the sand. The lagoon slowly filled with water... and then the fun began.

A hot breeze suddenly blew in from the north. Reinforcements arrived. We went into full-on Army Corps mode.


As usual, things got totally, beautifully out of hand. And despite exceeding the limits of our sunscreen protocol, we thoroughly enjoyed the day's lesson in fluid dynamics. Water can be a relentless force of chaos, easily overwhelming poorly planned efforts to contain it. Yet its inexorable drive to lower ground is entirely predictable and thus manageable, once some basic principles have been mastered. And -- once mastered -- its power can be harnessed in the the creation of almost unlimited wonders.



Next day we were feeling nostalgic, so we packed up a picnic and walked south along the beach until things started looking familiar. It was about five miles to Iron Springs, we think. There we played in the river, lounged in the sun, feasted upon sandwiches featuring the most elaborate selection of condiments ever dispensed with a single pocket knife, drew our biggest labyrinth yet, and experimented with another chaotic-yet-harnessable force of nature:



By the time we had consumed several more fabulous meals, including double strawberry-rhubarb desserts; finished two weeks worth of NY Times Sunday crosswords; passed the hilarity of "This is a Fork" on to a new generation; enjoyed a theatrical production involving scheming scientists, true love, dueling cyborgs, singing nuns, and Hamlet's soliloquy; discovered ents, a tree fort, and a secret skipping-rock-rich island on the Moclips River; and stopped at the Aberdeen Dairy Queen for dipped cones, we were pretty well tuckered out.


We are bracing for a brutal re-entry tomorrow morning, but hopeful that some of the lessons of the beach will carry over:

• Whenever possible, build on the work done by those who came before you.
• Sometimes fixing one minor breakdown can bring a whole system back to life.
• Entropy can be mastered, or at least channeled.
• There's no such thing as too much strawberry-rhubarb pie.
• Some change is good.
• You can go home again, at least for a visit.