Viking

Taken at Pacific City, Oregon, July 2026.

We built a campfire on the beach. Pacific City is very windy, though, so doing so involved digging a hole, and building a bit of a windbreak out of what driftwood was available. The downside to this is that driftwood is also flammable, and this piece kept starting to smolder. After putting out the fire, we realized that the smoldering had instilled some lit embers along the near edges of this log.

Shoot, we thought, we used up the last of our water on the embers in the fire pit!

Not so, said the ocean.

And so we gave our piece of driftwood a viking burial, aflame on the sea.