Dead Whale
Hiked to 2nd Beach on the Olympic Peninsula yesterday. Resting against a log in the sand, I couldn't stand the pain in my back teeth any more. Thought it might be that place that needed flossing, was delicately working at it when a ghastly smell floated by.
At first I thought it was something old stuck in my teeth; you with deep places in your teeth know how it is when you dig out an ancient shred of meat and it's gone bad. I dug a little more and the smell oozed by again. Realized it wasn't me; got up and began to look around.
About ten feet away, a five-foot long black woody-looking mass displayed the remains of baby-whale-size vertebrae. Might have been what was left of a head. The crows were happily bouncing about on this bounty. I stood back, breathing through my mouth, and tried to be respectful; it's a whale, after all.
Two guys showed up who were camping down the beach. One of them had a shovel, and they had a very determined look. When they found the dessicated mass, their attitude was exactly that I'd seen in a guy on the beach viewing a piece of dead whale before: "How DARE it rot on MY beach!"
What's up with that? This is nature; stuff dies and washes up. Stuff rots. These two testicles just glowed with a sense of righteous outrage. Maybe they wanted a mint on their pillows.
As I walked away, I saw them covering it up, and some pretty disturbed crows. All I could do is laugh. And laugh.
Smoggy today; literally. The British Columbia forest fires are combining their smoke with our August fog to provide us with our own version of a London Peculiar.
