The Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes are one of the last great places on earth – 22 acres of nature sculpted dunes, hidden willow valleys, wild strawberry fields, over 340 species of plants, hundreds of dune wildflowers, surf crashing to the shore after its thousands of miles journey all the way from Japan. At night the dunes take on a special magic – a bowl of stars to be seen from the bottom of a barchan dune as if there were no other out there in the world. You learn to walk with your feet and not your eyes just like the natives did 5,000 years ago as they lived off the deer, rabbits, abalone, clams, mussels and fish that inhabit this place. Transected by a major river, and a number of creeks, the dunes provided fresh water year round and willows and tules to build wonderfully warm wind proof domed shelters.

It is a privilege to know this place and my favorite thing to do is to take people out into it.
There is a loop that starts at the parking lot on Oso Flaco Lake Road that takes you by board walk to the beach, then you travel south along the shore, cross the outlet to Oso Flaco Creek and turn in due east traversing the dunes til they end about my friend Mike Mills’ broccoli farm.

So when we set out on this moonless night I planned to make the loop. But it was more like the loop’d’loop, in that when we got to the far end of the dunes the landscape, as it is wont to do, had changed a lot since the last time I was there about 6 months ago. I think the god Aeolus had been messing with my landscape.

So the question is did Liz get us lost? I guess it depends on your definition of lost? The dictionary says, “having wandered from, or unable to find, the way.” Well I knew where we were, I just couldn’t find the path I wanted to take. (How often does that happen in life!!!) So we had to trudge all the way back to the ocean and then take the board walk back. Never lost just confused.