CONTEXTO DE  MACROESPACIOS

EBBET;

Drove up Ebbetts pass to a place I know on the Stanislaus river where there is a little beach. Almost always empty and waiting for me.

This time it was infested.
A couple and two kids and two dogs.
His stomach hanging out over his orange bathing suit. Her hair tightly curled, homogeneous bottle blond.
The dogs barking.
The kids clustered around an inflatable plastic raft

An array of Coleman coolers and striped pink chairs.
Picked my way down river. Past a young mother with two small children. The children -- a boy and a girl -- had removed all their clothes and were splashing contently in the water at the edge of the river.
Moved a little further down river. Sat on a rock. Opened beer. Crackers and cheese hastily thrown into my backpack.

A mother duck and one baby (an adolescent) swam against the current to reach my picnic site. She watched him with that sweet expression some ducks have, and I wondered what had happened to her other babies.

                                                                                                                    STANISLAUS RIVER