Thursday, June 02, 2016

if you like making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape

Today was slightly less stellar than yesterday, if only because I slept too late (I blame Ritu, who had nothing to do with it beyond our weekend shenanigans, which ended three days ago), and so didn't get enough work done. But I have a tentative game plan and I'm going to be more focused tomorrow, I swear.

However, I threw it all aside by 5pm so that I could pursue other activities. First I met up for a v. quick, rather rushed dinner with the writer I met yesterday - we went back to the same place for the fixed price dinner special that they had tonight, which was delicious (the polenta with bolognese to start was excellent, and the short ribs were to die for). But I only had an hour, which wasn't really quite enough time - but it was enough time to have a nice conversation and eat some tasty food, so #noregrets.

But I had to leave at six to go to my evening plans - I'd booked a sunset tour of the dunes, which was gorgeous other than the fact that it was way too cloudy to see a sunset. But the dunes out here are incredible - it's such a different landscape, and entirely remote/empty. The tour company is the only group allowed to drive through that section (except for the park rangers and a specific charity), and the driving is rough going - they have to let almost all the air out of their tires (down to 8 or 9 psi) to make it over the dunes, then air them all up again before driving back into town.

Despite the lack of sunset, the tour was still really awesome - the waves were crashing in at high tide, and there were a whole bunch of seals hanging out and eating fish in the waves just a few dozen yards from shore. What's really strange and bizarre is that there are a couple of dozen beach shacks out there that were previously private property but are now owned by the government and rented out to writers and artists - which sounds delightful, except for the fact that they have no electricity and no running water (although they each have an outhouse and a hand pump that you can get cold water from). I like solitude, but that might be a wee bit too much solitude even for me.

So I'm glad I went out to the dunes, even though it derailed my evening progress. When we got back to town, I came back to my airbnb, and I spent the rest of the night dealing with administrative stuff - mostly planning for all the other trips I have coming up (lol). And now I'm going to go to bed so I can write more aggressively tomorrow - I also have interesting plans tomorrow night, which I shall leave you in suspense for (hint: it's a talk in town that I bought a ticket for, which means I'm unlikely to get stuck out in the sand dunes). Goodnight!

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