Matt’s Medium Adventure!

Our next stop was the beach.

Great Kills Park was too far from the hospital to spend more than a few minutes at, but I’m not sure I would’ve wanted to. The views were nice and the air was crisp, but man, the beach was FILTHY.

I should mention that we weren’t very choosy with which portion we visited, and there are surely better-kept areas. (Also, I don’t think we’ve passed the statute of limitations on Hurricane Sandy, and can safely blame at least some of the trash on that.)

But yeah, still. Pretty filthy.

Also, in my alternate universe, cans are bottles and bottles are cans.

The mess may come as a shock to some of you, but it’s no big deal for me. We have areas that more closely resemble what people think of when they hear “beach,” but there are also many areas that aren’t actively maintained. They’re not meant for swimming, sunbathing or anything, really.

So you kinda accept that when you go into those areas, they’re gonna be unkempt. God knows how some of the things we saw ended up there, but it couldn’t have all been straight-up litter. (Course, some piles clearly were. When you see ten dented cans of Bud next to a condom wrapper, they probably didn’t wash ashore.)

Despite that, there were some actual, non-gross highlights!

The first was this hunk of wood, which immediately struck us as a dinosaur skull. Had I rubber gloves and a pretty enormous Ziploc bag, I would’ve taken it home.

This was an even better find. A bunch of bird eggs, right there on the beach! We desperately tried to convince ourselves that they were sea turtle eggs, but nah, they’re bird eggs.

I haven’t done enough Googling to figure out exactly what kind of bird laid them, but there were four eggs on the open sand, warmed only by sun. The mother was nowhere in sight.

We felt a little uneasy leaving them there. The eggs were just so prone, and we could just imagine what some idiot kid would do after finding four speckled mystery eggs on the beach. Ultimately, we agreed that the birds must know what they’re doing, and any attempt to move the eggs to would only damage the babies growing inside.

Besides, it’s tough to imagine six-year-olds prancing on a beach covered with so many prescription bottles and condom wrappers. Birds are smarter than we think.