A Walk on the Saltflats

It was the hottest day of the year when my friend, Kevin, drove us to Fir Island. He told me about a favorite place, near by, where he liked to walk. Kevin was enthusiastic and high-spirited. We talked about changes in the valley, how the potato crop looked, how hot the day was and other subjects that passed the time pleasantly. We drove past the Rexville grocery, over the South Fork (of the Skagit River) Bridge. Past farms and houses and to the end of a farm road that was swallowed by a dike, which meandered left and right. Over the dike we walked and from the top, saw an expanse of grass with a hill in the distance. On the horizon was Whidbey Island, the Sound and various humpy hills, recalcitrant resistors to the last Ice Age glacier. In the shrouded distance to the South, we could make out Mt. Ranier, and snow-covered foothills to the east, going to Mt. Baker, North, now bathed in the special light of the evening sun. Graciously, high clouds had moved in and the day had cooled.
Walking along a faint path, the ground was soft and spongy. The grass tasted strongly of salt. What plants grew had to be very tolerant of the salty ground. Mostly grasses with sundry weeds and rare clumps of Cat Tail reeds. Lots of birds and bird song. Every spike of tall weed seemed to have a singing bird on it. As we walked, we came to the high-tide line with bleached storm-tossed logs and even an old refrigerator, that door-less, floated to this parking spot. Swallows dipped and glided and swooped past us, nearly colliding with us. The birds were mostly uninterested in us. We were transient to them.
The hill, Kevin told me is called Bald Island. It looks like its' name, trees and bushes growing at the base and only moss at the top. We saw Herons winging along the waters' edge and even an Eagle, that landed somewhere on the other side of the hill.
When Kevin asked me if I wanted to go to the hill or a nearer, lower rise, I opted for the near. On this rock grew moss and lichen and Service Berry bushes. We sat down on thick moss and rested, eating cherries that Kevin brought for a snack. In the distance we listened to screeching Sea Gulls that excitedly dove to the water, fishing. Somebody was telling them jokes and they were laughing uproaringly, at least that is how they sounded to me.
I was observing what went on around me, imagining the passing of time and listening to myself think. I realized that the long, flat expanse was doing something to my mind. Living in town,I am hemmed in by houses and structure and all that openness was opening my head to the wonder of the wild, that still exists, on the edges of this beautiful Valley where I live.