reconnaissance

Shortly after we arrived in Bellingham last summer, Kendall and I spotted a sign for beach access along Chuckanut Drive. We parked in the designated lot, and after much scrambling down rocky inclines and thrashing about in the undergrowth, we arrived not at anything resembling a beach, but at a rocky outcrop better suited, as Kendall noted, for plunging to one’s death.

Given that this beach is a landmark important enough to warrant its own parking lot, we figured that, as usual, there was some local trick we’d missed. Yesterday, lured by the summer sun, we again set out in search of the phantom beach. We left the parking lot by way of a different trail, but ended up at the selfsame spot, albeit with fewer mosquitoes this time around. After a sigh of frustration, we sat in silence, taking in the San Juan Islands, dark against the opaque silvery blue of the bay’s sun-lightened waters. It was glorious, but not the beach we’d been expecting. So we set off again, following a hiker’s instructions to continue along the railroad tracks, looking for “a slightly bigger trail, probably with more people on it.” And we did, in fact, happen upon Clayton Beach, a sandy sliver carved out between the forested coastal cliffs and the sea. At low tide, the pocked coastline and barnacle-covered rocks were exposed, and crabs and miniature jellyfish moved through the sun-warmed shallows. The beach was neither more nor less beautiful than the previous spot, and finding it gave the sense of a minor triumph and vague restlessness, the sort that often follows the fulfillment of a long-anticipated desire.

We returned to the car, making mental note of the trail’s contours for a future return. Out of such experiences accumulates, perhaps, a sense of place.