Bulldozer at the Beach

After a rainy night on Saturday yesterday turned out to be a nice day. It was partly sunny with temperatures in the high 50s. I told a ride down to Robert Moses State Park. Usually when I go there I do a sketch of the Fire Island Lighthouse. It was a bit windy so I ended up sitting in my car facing a dune by the boardwalk with this cute yellow bulldozer sitting there...a perfect model.

When I finished I took a walk along the boardwalk to the lighthouse and back. As I was heading for the parking lot I heard this noise that sounded like a truck backing up. It was the bulldozer which was digging a trench right along the edge of the boardwalk. It was already sort of deep and not too wide but the driver kept scooping out sand and piling it up off to the side. The only problem was that the bulldozer was parallel to the side of the boardwalk and also parallel to the narrow trench. Everyone was watching because now the bulldozer was tilted about 45 degrees toward the boardwalk and it looked like it was going to tip over into the trench and onto the railing of the boardwalk. The driver kept trying to back up and get out of the trench but his back wheels were stuck. Another guy came over to see if he could help but all he had was a shovel. I watched for a while but finally went back to my car and ate my lunch. I couldn't see what was happening but about 10 minutes later the bulldozer drove into view so I guess he was able to extract it.