These dunes are a lot of different things for a lot of different people. If you wander around them enough, much like coastal dunes near urban areas everywhere, you’ll find the clues left behind- everything from remains of small fires where school kids burned their homework, to all sorts of sordid tales of detritus that I’d rather not mention here.

Speaking of things found in these dunes, I once left a jar of water carefully buried here and took the girl I was in love with on a long walk that led to the jar so that I could find it again and offer it to her and express my hope that one day the water would turn to wine- a metaphor for our future marriage.

Before that, though, I’d come out here and spend the night when I was struggling and confused about life. After one hard night I awoke to find myself just 10 feet from a group of travelers, who showed endless patience and heard me out all morning over a meal of biscuits made from pancake-mix dough wrapped in seaweed and cooked over the coals of a small fire.

Not quite flapjacks, but pretty much flapjacks for the soul.