One winter morning, I had crab in Bandon, Oregon.

I went up the coast and went out one morning and bought crab in Bandon, Oregon.

I drove up along the rugged coast of Oregon and went out one morning and got crab in Bandon, Oregon.

I rode up the coast on my motorcycle just as my marriage was ending and stayed at a hostel. I was lonely and so I woke before dawn one morning and walked out to the docks and talked to the fishermen. I bought a crab and went back to the hostel and cooked it and ate it for breakfast in Bandon, Oregon.

I rode up the coast of Oregon looking for solitude and some measure of inner peace, and stayed in a youth hostel right along the beach. I read the Tao Te Ching and meditated in the cool morning air before walking down to the beach and watching the early fishermen catching crabs in pots that they lowered from the dock. I bought and cooked a brilliant pink King Crab nearly eight inches across and ate it before getting ready to go back south in Bandon, Oregon.

I rode into town looking for something, not knowing what it was, but found it in a funny, unexpected way one morning when I rose early and watched the seagulls and the fishermen fishing off the docks, and bought a big crab and ate it sitting outside on a wall in the cold air burning my fingers on the bright pink shell and letting the soft white flesh melt in my mouth in Bandon, Oregon.

And that was in Bandon, Oregon, where I stopped on a roadtrip one morning, partly just because I liked the sound of the name at a moment when its coded meanings and infinite possibilities spoke to me most.