Friends and family, Hope you are all well! Here is the story of another of my (mis)adventures, this time a trip to Ocean City and camping at Assateague without ever getting into a car. I must have used less than a gallon of gas for the whole trip, during which I traveled about 350 miles. It is a bit of a rambling tale but I hope you enjoy reading it. Wish I had finished it earlier (the trip was a month ago) but time was hard to come by. I have tried to keep it as fresh as possible. Your frank comments and criticism are welcome, both positive and negative. A word document of the same is attached. Yours, Sankar P/S: Please let me know if you do not wish to receive such e-mail in the future. Camping without car 6/10/07, Sunday As the snows of March melt and give way to the warmth of April and May my spirits start to rise. Much as I enjoy my work I can’t help starting to smell the summer as the close of school year approaches. I could almost hear the waves and imagine luxuriating at Assateague beach, with the soothing ocean breeze and sunshine. At first I thought of waiting until I finish the project that I have been working on and also had a hope of making it a romantic getaway. But that didn’t work out last summer and I ended up feeling stifled and worn out, neither finishing the project nor finding fulfillment in romance, and finally left in August at the very end of summer. So this year I decided not to wait. I wanted to try to relax, rejuvenate myself and also (believe it or not) get some work done at the beach in the beginning of summer. The beach is always refreshing and most of my better ideas for life as well as work have come on the road or out on the trail. As for romance, well, it seems that the best thing to do is to just let it happen when it happens and not worry about it too much. It turned out to be a good thing, as I hope to show below, in more ways than one. For one thing in June the weather is cooler and it is less crowded… Last wednesday turned out to be the best time to leave. Due to the recent increase in my environmental consciousness as well as a desire to avoid driving 150 miles of increasingly congested route 50, I booked a trip on the Greyhound bus line to Ocean City. It seemed that the only way to get to Assateague Island from Ocean City was to take a cab from the bus station. It would be about 30 to 35 dollars, the cab company said. The plan was to work on Wednesday morning, take the bus in the afternoon, get to Ocean city around sunset, catch a cab and hope the park ranger would still be there when I got to Assateague. They told me over the phone that if I don’t get there and register before the 10pm closing time I would not be able to camp. In that case maybe take the cab back to Ocean City and sleep in some tacky cheap motel. On the way back I planned to hike the 9 miles from Assateague to Ocean city and catch the bus Friday evening. People hike 2000 miles from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian trail, so 9 miles shouldn’t be a problem, right? Given how popular it is, though, I hope they do run some sort of shuttle bus to Assateague from Ocean city in the future. But as they say, man proposes and God disposes. My plans were about to be seriously endangered. On Sunday afternoon I was upstairs for about two hours in the afternoon taking a nap. It had rained all day and when I came down part of the kitchen floor was completely covered with what looked like a swarm of little ants with wings. I swept them away and cleaned the kitchen and plugged the cracks under the stairs that they were coming through. That seemed to take care of it. But then that night while returning from meditation my good friend Catherine told me that they might be termites. After some googling it became almost certain that they were, in fact, termite swarmers. She was also kind enough to recommend a home inspector who had done a good job at her house. So 3 hours of Tuesday morning was spent with the home inspector, who turned out to be a really thorough professional. He was a pleasant man to work with, a tall, strapping mustachioed Midwesterner. He said he watched Bollywood movies with his wife all the time. I didn’t know what to say, because I am not crazy about popular Indian movies myself. Anyway, after listing the myriad problems with the house that needed to be worked on, he said he wouldn’t be able to say exactly what damage the termites have caused until the floor is cut open, but the uneven and soft feel of the kitchen floor was possibly due to their work. Apparently the termite colony sends out these specialized swarming termites once or twice a year. The good thing was that I needed to work on the kitchen floor anyway and since termites worked slowly it was not going to collapse overnight. Nothing sharpens the mind like a little crisis. Having an old house constantly keeps me on an edge, and provides the occasional kick to the gluteal muscles when I am lacking in energy and drive. Now that my mind was more alert, it came up with a few questions. Why not leave on Wednesday morning, and avoid the risk of getting there late and not being able to camp? The world was not going to stop turning if I didn’t make it to office on Wednesday morning. Also, why not rent a bike from Ocean City and bike to and from Assateague, instead of spending a good portion of the two days hiking? Upon searching, there were several bike shops that rented bikes and one of them offered a bike for 3 days for $40. Greyhound also said I could change the timings on the ticket for an additional $10. So Tuesday night after dinner I started packing. I was a little distracted by the Republican presidential debate. I had it on just for company as I was packing but as it went on I found myself paying more and more attention. Giuliani, Romney and McCain came across as just polished politicians, and worse, Godfather Republicans in the style of Bush and Cheney, by which I mean the “You give us all the power and wealth, we will protect you from the bad guys” Republicans. But to my own surprise I found that Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback, the more conservative of the bunch, looked more grown up and sounded more reasonable. While people have been complaining that they don’t believe in evolution, I found their answer to be more thoughtful than just a rejection of evolution. Obviously they were talking to their constituents as well, but they sounded more honest than the rest. I also liked their statements regarding the duty of Christians to fight poverty. Anyway, it was now well past midnight and I hadn’t really packed anything yet. I found it difficult to pack the sleeping bag, tent and clothes into the backpack. The last time I went backpacking I got help in packing and I didn’t even remember how it was done. Whenever my dad is with me he does the packing for me (though he wasn’t there for the backpacking). He is an excellent packer. I guess I didn’t get his genes for packing. My idea of packing, especially since I usually do it at the last minute, is to simply throw all the things I think I would need and stuff it inside as hard as I could. [Think of one of those old Laurel and Hardy movies, or one of those Mr. Bean episodes]. So not only do I end up with some highly unbalanced baggage I also find myself lugging many things I don’t need or use. Finally I decided to carry a duffel bag along with the backpack and somehow finished packing around 3 am. After about two hours of sleep I got up around 6 and quickly finished watering the plants and preparing food. Now the moment of truth arrived as I hoisted the backpack with the duffel bag strapped underneath. After adjusting the buckles so as to put most of the weight on the hip bones it didn’t feel too bad. I started walking to the metro station around 7. It was refreshing to walk early in the morning. I must have made a funny sight, with a big floppy hat, bulging backpack with a duffel bag underneath, walking to the metro station and then riding the train to New York Ave station to catch the Greyhound bus. Luckily in Washington people are so busy and absorbed in their own lives that almost nothing raises eyebrows or elicits a wisecrack. Unless if it were Monica Lewinsky. Or maybe not…Perhaps people thought I was a tourist. At the bus stop the ticketing lady told me not to worry about the extra $10 and simply take the early bus with the same ticket. “If the driver let you go, you don’t have to pay,” she said. Little did I know at that moment the difficulty this would cause later. I had my breakfast at the little fast food joint inside the station and it consisted of hash browns, egg biscuits and a hot chocolate. Thus filled up I joined the line in front of the bus. Now I felt like a traveler. Traveling by bus feels like a chore when you sit at home but there is more of a sense of journey when you go by bus or train. Whereas traveling by car feels like a chore once you get into your car, once you get into the bus you are able to relax and enjoy the scenery and maybe a book. You also meet a lot of interesting people. Waiting in line in front of me was a Bulgarian woman. I wouldn’t quite qualify her as a beauty queen (though others might) but man did she know how to exude sensuality. Tossing her hair, arching her back and all that stuff. On the trip to Ocean City there were many other eastern Europeans, most of whom are students working summer jobs there. She didn’t speak much English and so our conversation for the next two hours (until the bus reached Baltimore) consisted mostly of not-so-meaningful smiles and short sentences. It was like sitting next to Angelina Jolie without knowing English. Not that she was in the same category of uber femme-fatale but you get the picture. She told me it was her first trip to the US and that she was going to work in Ocean City. I didn’t enquire what line of work it was. I wondered how she must be feeling, and memories of my arrival in the US at LAX and the bus trip to Pasadena came to mind. When we got to Baltimore she didn’t know she had to get off until I pointed to her luggage which had been removed and put out by the side of the bus. Changing buses at Baltimore was the most painful part of the journey, both on the way to Ocean City and on the way back. When we got to Baltimore there was a long line of people who had arrived from various cities waiting to get on to the Ocean City bus. The driver then asked people whose ticket said 11.30 to form a separate line and all hell broke loose. Everyone rushed to the front and many, especially the ones who didn’t speak English, were totally confused. A security officer stood by the door to make sure no fights broke out. Reminded me of bus travel back home in India, where everyone is out for themselves, and getting on to a bus or train usually involves a mad scramble. These days it is getting better in India, though. When I got to the door the policewoman wouldn’t let me through because my ticket was for the 5 pm bus. Then I talked to the driver and he said he couldn’t do anything about what was done in Washington. I told him there was no way I was going to wait for another five hours but he was not moved. After letting in everyone who had 11.30 on their ticket he let the rest of us in, warning that we might have to stand the whole way and that he didn’t want to fight with anyone. Luckily I got a seat and everyone held their temper and the rest of the journey was mostly uneventful. At Annapolis I saw a woman go apoplectic with one of the station staff but nothing happened on the bus. I spent most of the time in a semi-conscious state, sometimes sleeping, sometimes thinking about my number theory problem. Even got some good ideas. In fact, I would say that over the whole trip I did my best thinking during those hours on the way to Ocean City. Perhaps it was because I didn’t feel like thinking about anything else and thinking about mathematics was relaxing. But I was still feeling a bit disgruntled, and considering that this was my first real trip out of DC for over a year (went to Boston last August), I didn’t feel the euphoria that I normally feel on such occasions. Perhaps I am getting too old and crabby… Once you get out of the Kent Island and into the countryside with its vegetable farms, corn fields and grassy meadows you always relax a bit, especially if you are from DC. It is such a pleasure and almost like entering a different world. You also start smelling the marine air and see shops selling boats and boat accessories everywhere. I make this pilgrimage at least once every summer, to the Eastern shore. Over the years I have visited and spent time at Ocean City, Pocomoke forests, Jane’s Island, and several days at the small former resort town of Betterton. This is my refuge from the life in DC which is certainly rewarding but even from heaven you need a break once in a while. The main attraction is the beach, of course, but it is the overall ambience that makes it so refreshing. The ocean air, the open fields and forests, the marshes, marine birds, places with musical names like Chicawicomico, the drive over miles of open water on the bay bridge, the centuries of history starting with the native Americans (who gave us these musical names), colonial settlements, plantations, slavery (albeit slightly less brutal than Virginia and other states further south), and so on, but most of all, the almost idyllic existence in Assateague Islands, which was my final destination on this trip. The bus arrived in Ocean City around 3.30pm. Though I had had little food or sleep the arrival in Ocean City had energized me and I felt neither hunger nor fatigue. I went to the first bike shop I could find and they told me there was only one place which would rent bikes overnight and that was Continental bikes, charging the aforementioned $40 for 3 days. I had fries and a lemonade on the boardwalk and hurried to the bus stop. Assuming they closed at 5, I had about 45 minutes. The bus arrived soon enough but it seemed to take forever to get to the bike shop. The shop was near 60th ave, about 4 miles up the ocean side road. A bunch of boisterous high school kids got into the bus and started making a big racket, teasing and playing with each other. They started asking every girl in the bus if she was an 07 or 08 or 09. I guess they were bragging about their graduation. By now I could also not miss all the women in bikinis, both on the streets and the bus. Ocean City calls itself a family place, but I am guessing the dads would have a tough time keeping their eyes away from all the buxom beauties parading about in bikinis that bared more than they covered. The moms probably have something to keep their eyes busy too, but I am not an expert on that. Fortunately or unfortunately I didn’t have to worry about these things and could let my eyes wander as I wish, though right now I was preoccupied with getting the bike and making it to Assateague. Still no euphoria, though. Just some mild anxiety. I made it to Continental bikes about 4.45pm and was relieved to see that they were still open and had a few rental bikes left. The shop guy seemed quite friendly but when I told him I was from DC he started complaining about some black people from DC who had “trashed the place” when they came for a convention. I told him I work at Howard and that most black people I met were really nice. I had noticed in general that though the people in the Eastern shore were very friendly and down to earth and all, they didn’t seem too comfortable with non-whites. I suspect this might be the reason for all the Eastern European students working summer jobs there, despite the presence of a significant black population in those counties. Nevertheless I was happy to see several black youth enjoying the beach and boardwalk in Ocean City, and so perhaps I shouldn’t judge anyone on this matter without understanding it deeper. Anyway, he didn’t argue about this too much and wished me best of luck for the ride to Assateague and even offered some bug spray which I declined. Told him I’d rather suffer a few bites than deal with the feeling and smell of chemicals on my skin, any more than I have to. Turned out bugs, especially mosquitoes, weren’t a problem on this trip. Now another moment of truth arrived as I tried to balance myself, backpack and duffel bag and all, on the bike. The bike didn’t have a rack so I had to put everything on my back. After adjusting the seat height it got easier and I was able to ride at a decent pace, albeit very carefully. As I was biking a couple of little kids started biking alongside, jumping to and from the curb. Finally one of them got a little too close and while trying to avoid him I lost my balance and fell down. Maybe that is what the little punk was trying to do. Luckily I was able to just get up and go and there were no cars right behind me. An old man who was sitting in front of a shop and watching all of this walked up to me to enquire. “It was hard to keep my balance,” I told him. Then I stopped at a nearby internet kiosk to check e-mail. They have a few of these in Ocean City, and they are open until 2 am. They seem to be run by and for Eastern European students, mainly from Russia. I guess this is how they keep in touch with folks at home. I saw many of them lined up by the phone as well. It almost felt like their home away from home. Finally I was on my way around 6pm. A mile from Ocean City, past the bridge over Isle of Wight bay, the park and ride lot and across from a big strip mall with some outlet shops is the intersection with Stephen Decatur Highway (route 611) that takes you all the way to Assateague Island. It is a smooth road without too much traffic. There is a separate bike lane over sections of it. (There are bike lanes on the roads in Ocean City as well. Looks like they want to promote biking). It goes by the Ocean City municipal airport which is a nice sight at night because you have an unobstructed view of the landing strip with its lights. You also pass farms, golf courses, houses and a campground. As you get closer to Assateague there are a lot of woods, full of oak, sweetgum and pine. The mind slowed down and relaxed as the bike started rolling on this smooth, flat and open road. The eyes feasted on the views of the horizon, the fields, trees, grass and clear blue sky. This was what it was all about! If I were on a car, I’d be hardly noticing anything, even if it were a convertible. But on a bike, the countryside rolled by slower and you had time to let it all sink in. You felt closer to the earth and the sky. Going on a bus is better, too, because your view is enhanced by the height of the bus. But nothing beats biking. Walking doesn’t give you the same pleasure as biking for miles and miles in the open countryside. Even in LA, where countryside is hard to come by, when I was a non-motorized grad student I used to bike for hours on the flat valley roads and enjoyed it thoroughly. I reached Assateague around 7pm. It had been a good 12 hours since I left home. I might as well have biked the whole way! I wish there were a good, continuous bike route all the way from Washington to Ocean City and other points on the Eastern shore. As it is you can bike for parts of the route but I wonder how easy it is. Also there is the question of how you get across the bay bridge, because bikes are not allowed on it. They used to have ferries going to the Eastern shore but it stopped after the bay bridge was constructed. They are thinking of reviving it but right now the only way is to call some government office (highway department?) and request transportation for the bike across the bridge. Alternatively it will be nice if they run a beach bus service, running non-stop from Washington to Ocean City. I am sure there will be plenty of people who would love such a service. Greyhound seems to be rather indifferent to the needs of passengers. Simply because most of their passengers are low-income doesn’t mean they could be treated like cattle. It is getting better but I can see why people who can afford it drive instead of using the bus. After registering with the park ranger I managed to pitch tent by sunset. My neighbors on the next campsite were two sisters, with two small children of one of them. They were having a vacation without their husbands and toddlers and looked like they were really enjoying themselves. They turned out to be very friendly over the next couple of days. I wanted to go to the beach before it got too dark. The good thing at Assateague is that the beach is only a few steps from your campsite. I took some snacks with me and sat down on the beach. It was around 8.45pm now, almost dark. The sun had already set. Eating peanuts while sitting on the beach reminded me of Marina beach in Chennai (previously Madras). It is a favorite thing to do at Marina beach. In fact I think as a nation (I mean India) our favorite activity is sitting down and eating snacks. I wish we’d get off our butts more and become more physically active. Now with the popularity of the internet and the spread of television it has become even more difficult. I could see the lights of Ocean City to the north, the giant wheel and the pier and all. Now I felt like a child again. There is something special about beaches, boardwalks and fishing piers. I have felt that in Santa Monica as well. They stand at the edge of land, glittering with activity, life and light. They take our terrestrial life and infuse it with the magnificent immensity of the ocean. I sat there for a few more minutes, just listening to the waves. From the clear sky in the darker hours of twilight, the moonlight shimmered on the rippling waters. It seemed to make a path of light from the busy waves under my feet all the way to the vast mysteries of the silent beyond. I wished I could just walk over that path! The waves seemed to be whispering “come, come, come.” It gave me a hint of what they say is the “call of the wild” that has lured man throughout history. We have an innate yearning to break out of our confines and explore the infinite, whether it is in the mountains, on the ocean or in outer space. Some of us, especially in the East, answer the same call in the depths of our own psyche. Walking back to my tent I passed by some of my fellow campers in the same loop. There was one couple with a huge trailer and a big American flag on top of it. They didn’t even need a tent –obviously the trailer had a nice bedroom and kitchen inside. Sometimes these campgrounds look like a little village, with people setting up campers that are almost houses on wheels. I guess to each one’s own. Others were sitting around campfires, talking or singing songs. Couples were taking romantic walks with lanterns in hand. It made me think of the women I wish were here with me, momentarily. But life has taught me to accept what I have, and see the preciousness and value of what is, in this moment. Of not wanting what I do not have but rejoicing in what has been given. I have spent many years looking for something, whether it is in romance or at work or in the spiritual realm, without seeing what is right in front of me. Like a prospector searching for gold but missing the diamond in the dirt. The next morning I woke up with the sun, feeling fresh and energetic. I had to ask myself, what is it about the beach that fills me with so much energy? I go to bed early, get up early, sleep well, exercise well, think well and enjoy life more. Perhaps it has to do with the ocean air. Perhaps it is the change of scenery. Amazing, what a difference geographical environment can make. I went for a walk on the beach with a beach towel wrapped over, because it was cool in the morning. There was almost no one out, not even the fishermen. The shorebirds and crabs were busy on the sand. The crabs going in and out of holes in the sand and the shorebirds running after them now and then. It is impressive how hard animals work for their food. Our primitive ancestors also probably worked very hard, with no time for anything else. We are lucky today to have the luxury of leisure and time for contemplation. After some exercise and yoga I had a quick breakfast and then went to the beach with my papers and books. I was hoping to get a good four hours of work done this morning. But God had other plans. You see, the beach is not just waves and the cry of the sea gulls and sunshine and sand. It is also, at least in these parts, full of beautiful women in bikinis. I can tell you honestly that this is not what draws me here or fills me with the aforementioned energy. Because I have felt the same way at Betterton in January, and I am sure you will agree that there are no bikinis in January in this part of the world. Also normally Assateague is full of families with kids and their older, flabbier parents who look flabbier in their swimsuits. But this morning I felt like I had walked into a swimsuit contest. All around me were pretty young women with well sculpted physiques wearing tiny strips of clothing that clung to their bodies in a miracle of technology, meant to display more than dress. It was total baberama. I would be a hypocrite if I said I felt uncomfortable or that I don’t like this kind of display because if I did I would have moved to another part of the beach. I am a mere mortal with all the limitations that come with being a man. While I try to follow certain moral principles, my line on the sand stops just beyond bikinis. Except for thong bikinis – they show poor taste and leave little to the imagination, in my opinion. Luckily you don’t see those in the Eastern shore. Anyway, the result was that this morning I was simply unable to concentrate on mathematics. At best I was able to think in stretches of fifteen minutes. During lunch time I ran into one of the sisters, from the neighboring campsite. She asked if I had ridden my bike all the way from DC, and told me she had never learnt to ride bikes, having grown up riding horses in Oregon. I should have told her that I never learnt swimming until I was in my twenties, or that I have never ridden a horse, which I think must be a lot harder than riding a bike. Instead I told her that I just rode from Ocean city, and that I wanted to try something different, instead of just driving here all the time. Looks like this bike riding is also a good conversation piece and head turner. People stared at me all the time and asked about it. I must also have looked rather mysterious with my floppy hat, craggy week-old beard and sunglasses. Little did the casual observer know of the bald pate lurking under that hat or the geeky smile hiding behind the beard. After lunch the sisters left for Chincoteague and I biked to Ocean City. I spent some time on the boardwalk, enjoying a lemonade and watching people. I also sat down for some time at the Java beach café, reading and just relaxing. This cafe has an unusual configuration for a restaurant. They have a pizza stall, a sandwich grill and a couple of coffee bars and you have to order and pay for each separately. I was served at this bar by a cute Nepali girl, another college student working summer jobs here. She said she went to high school, of all the places in the world, in my home state of Kerala. But then again, maybe this was not such a huge coincidence because so many kids from southern India come to the US for college. I liked this café a little better than the other shops on the boardwalk, because it was a little cooler and quieter inside, and at the same time you had a nice view of the boardwalk, the beach and the ocean. Sometimes when I sit and watch life on the beach I feel like I am in a movie. It is so removed from my daily existence, especially from my existence during the first half of my life, that it feels almost dreamy. Of course I am not talking merely about the tourist aspect of it, even though I wouldn’t be so snobbish as to call that tacky. To me life on the beach represents a departure from the existence on land, at the intersection of life on land with life on the vast, open ocean. It lifts my perspective above the mundane, petty thoughts and shows me life as it should be seen. When I see people playing on the beach, I only see people. They could have been anywhere. The sand, the waves frolicking brightly under the sun, the people, all become part of the same scene, and for a moment I forget that this is America or Ocean City or what kind of people they are or how they relate to me and so on. Relaxing at the beach also takes away all the disturbances in the mind, the noise and turbulence created by daily life. When the mind is so calm you also feel contented. In fact I learnt just the other day from wordsmith.org that there is a name for it in the Greek classics– ataraxia. During such ataraxic moments (there, I just used it in a sentence) I start to believe that this is how life should be, and feel jealous of all the people who live near the beach. Perhaps one day I will live like them. But for now I am content to enjoy the beach for a few days and go back to Washington. In the evening I biked back to Assateague. This time I was even more relaxed and enjoyed the ride more than the previous day. I noticed the many developments that were sprouting along the road, clearing out swamps, grassland and woods. Acre upon acre was up for sale. I hope the planners who are so diligently promoting tourism, and creating nice bike lanes, realize that nobody would want to bike through miles and miles of townhouses and strip malls. I hope they keep the golden goose alive by zoning a lot of green space out of bounds for development. In fact Assateague Island itself, which is a barrier island built up by the accumulation of sand, was once in the process of being developed into a tourist resort with hotels and such. Then everything got washed away by the ocean and the island was handed over to the Park Service, so today regular guys like me could spend a couple of days here for less than $100. Along the way I stopped at a roadside market to get some tomatoes and apples. This was just a small shelter on the side of the road with some tables, run by a family of Mexican immigrants from nearby Berlin. I really enjoyed meeting them. They had such a rare, earthy quality to them, like the people you would see in a 1940’s western. I wish I could speak spanish better. I could have learnt more about them and how they like their life here and whether they own their farm, etc., By now all the crabbiness was gone and I was feeling euphoric, the way I always feel when I camp out near the beach. As I went over the bridge across Sinepuxent bay, with its wide view of Assateague and the marshes and the herons and cranes wading in it, a wave of sheer happiness swept over me and my lips burst into song almost without my knowledge. For some reason the song that came out was a popular Tamil song from my youth that starts like “The sky is dripping honey and singing us a lullaby.” (Sounds much better in Tamil). It is a song that fits well into such ecstatic moments, not so much because of its lyrics as much as its chords. I went for a little run on the beach. By now it was fairly well populated. I picked up some shells to give to my nephews. There were also several turtle shells discarded after molting. It must be the first time that I was on the beach during molting season for turtles, because I don’t remember anything like it. The shells felt very soft and organic, almost like skin. I picked the one that was most intact and gave it to the children of one of the sisters. Later that night they had a campfire going and were enjoying s’mores. They kindly invited me to join them and thus I had my first ever experience of eating s’mores over a campfire. I also went on my nocturnal walk plus meditation on the beach. But this time there were some kids having a big party in the dark, playing loud music and prancing around a fire. I made a quick exit and returned to my campsite. The main activity of kids at the beach seemed to be drinking and sunbathing. Along with the sunscreen that the guys so enthusiastically rub over the girls’ backs they also bring their six packs and cases of jello shots. I wondered whether young people in America have always been like this, or if this life of drinking and recreational romance is a more modern development. Perhaps it is just a section of the population for whom life is one long party. I wish I had two parallel lives – one in which I party all the time and another for all the other stuff, like meditation, work, etc., Maybe I should learnt to dance in a meditative state of mind, drunk with the love of God like the Sufis. That way you party and meditate at the same time – or something like that. The next morning I got up early again. This time I went to the beach right away and did exercise and yoga on my beach towel. It was wonderful to be out on the beach at sunrise. I remembered the time I drove to the beach just to watch the sunrise, leaving DC around 3 am, on an impulse. It was well worth the trip, though I might not do that in my current environmental activist state of mind. Everything is fresh at sunrise, and one could savor the freshness even more because it is so quiet. You forget the passage of time watching the lights reflecting over the waters, entranced by the changing colors. It is the same at sunset, but for that you will have to go to Santa Monica. After breakfast I started taking down the tent and packing up, because checkout is at 11 am. This time my mind was calmer, so my packing was more organized. I managed to make the backpack much more compact, and also reduced greatly the size of the duffel bag. So maybe I do have my father’s genes for packing, after all. Then I went to the beach, bike and backpack and all. This morning there were fewer distractions, especially no swimsuit pageants. I was able to concentrate well and get a good amount of work done. I was still far from finishing my project but came up with a nice formula that was very satisfactory. The good thing about mathematics is that, like a garden, there is always a new flower to pleasantly surprise and delight you. It is a thing of beauty, after all. Even if you don’t make a lot of money or become famous, it gives you much joy. I spotted one of the wild ponies of Assateague standing on the beach, surf lapping at its feet. It was just hanging out, perfectly at home among the crowd. I have never seen them do that. There are a large number of them at Assateague, so much that their population growth is a cause for concern. They nose around the campsites all the time, having gotten used to people. Once during my automobilized days I was parked at the visitors’ lot and had my windows open. Suddenly I felt the presence of someone near me and when I turned around a wild pony was in my face, poking his head inside the window. I was stunned, and simply sat there staring and he walked away. But this was the first time I see one at the beach itself. Maybe it had finished foraging for the day and was just relaxing at the beach like everybody else. Around 2 pm I biked back to Ocean City, returned the bike, and after stopping for a little bite on the boardwalk took the bus back to Washington. The return trip was mostly uneventful, except for an unexpected change of bus at Salisbury, and some more delay and tension at Baltimore though this time they pressed some additional buses into service. The bus from Ocean City was a little less crowded and the journey was much more relaxing. As I leaned back in my seat and enjoyed the view of the passing countryside I felt a great feeling of contentment. I may not have accomplished much in this trip, nor gotten a lot out of it, but I will cherish the memories. Because what is life but a series of memories? In our brief existence we try to acquire and build many things, both material and spiritual. Yet at journey’s end the only things that remain are the memories. Our lives are built on the memories of our ancestors, and we leave our children with our memories. All we can hope to do is to live each moment so as to make it memorable. This way we will have something to feel good about, when we leave.