A couple of years back, I went on extended camping trip down the East coast.
I started in New Haven, Connecticut and drove south and left, south & left
until I hit the Florida Keys where I ran out of road.

Until this trip, I had never heard of driving on the beach. I was rather
shocked in a sort of thin-lipped, uptight, Yankee sort-of way. It just didn't
seem to me that anyone SHOULD be driving on the beach. It just bugged me.

In St. Augustine, at Anastasia State Park (a lovely place to camp, may I add)
I had a chat with a ranger who told me that, as amazing as it seemed, studies
had failed to prove that the cars were doing damage.

One thing my last few years as a sheller has taught me, it is to not get all
high and mighty about other peoples hobbies. How many folks assume that
shellers are doing damage? If I had a nickel for every time some
ill-informed, holier-than-thou, ding-dong chewed me out for shelling, I'd,
well, I'd be able to afford to photocopy a travel brochure for that trip to
Fiji I've been wanting to take.

Maybe the cars are causing damage, maybe not. I don't find them appealing.
But there are things on the beaches I like even less; loud radios, the stink
of pina colada-flavored suntan oil, jetskis (Gawd, I DESPISE jetskis!), thong
bathing suits on men...

Maybe the donax are having an aesthetic reaction. Maybe they can't stand the
suntan oil or bad pop music either. Maybe one morning a donax rolling around
in the swash zone looks up and sees some tourist's big pale hairy butt-crack
and just snaps, says to herself, "I can't take this anymore, the neighborhood
is shot." and moves out with all her friends and family.

In cars or no, the bottom line is simply this, to quote an old punk rock
lyric, "There's too many of us, there's too many of us."