Dead Horse Bay, the first expedition.

This weekend, two friends and I explored a part of the Rockaway Inlet called "Dead Horse Bay". The name comes from its early 19th century use as a site for a glue-making factory (you can still find old horse bones on the beach.) Around the 1920's, it stopped its function as a depository and became more of a landfill. The beach is covered with old glass bottles labeled with unfamiliar alcohol and beauty product companies. When the waves lap at the shore, you hear the tinkling sound that comes from glass shifting against glass on the shore. It is so eerie it give you the goosebumps, especially because you're guaranteed to be one of the only three people on the beach, but it is a treasure hunter's paradise.

One of my favorite finds was an old, olivine Scotch bottle from Scotland; the beach was absolutely covered with blue, green, brown, clear, and milk-glass bottles. I've laid my treasures along my windowsill--when dinnertime comes, I sit in my room and watch the light reflecting through the bottles onto the wall opposite. (Sarah would add here, "It's the little things.")