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clarentineThere's this thing I do whenever I visit some place new and have time to kill. I collect found stuff. In Austin at World Fantasy Con, it was acorns whose cups were an easy three inches across. In Shenandoah National Park, it's bits of stone. And, on Virginia Beach last weekend, it was shells and driftwood and other stuff from the tideline.
February in Virginia Beach is cold, but we picked a good weekend with lots of sun (and no snow!) and, because of the cold, there weren't too many people on the beach. More than I might have expected; there was a gymnastics meet and a swimming meet going on that weekend, so it was a challenge to find a time to swim in the hotel pool when it wasn't full of screeching kids throwing things and splashing. Most of the kids weren't on the beach in the early morning hours, so that's when I went out there. Just me, and some Japanese tourists trying to photograph the sunrise, and locals walking their dogs, and the gulls.
Lots and lots of gulls.
No, I didn't bother taking photos of them. At least not on purpose.
I don't have a photo of it, but I did manage to be on the beach just as the sun finally rose. Saw afterimages for half an hour as a result. It's funny how the upper edge always looks flat as it appears, whether there's clouds for it to hide behind or not.
One of the most interesting things piled up above the tideline were heaps of skate egg cases. (That's what I've been told they are.) Dozens of them mixed in with the bits of shell and broken goggle frames and horseshoe crab tails that formed the upper edge of the high tide mark - or at least some earlier high tide, because none of the tides reached that high during the weekend I was at the beach. Too bad they don't photograph well.
(More shots and closeups of the collage on my Flickr page; follow this link [http://www.flickr.com/photos/8556491@N07/] to get there.)
Don't say I never brought you anything. >:-)
February in Virginia Beach is cold, but we picked a good weekend with lots of sun (and no snow!) and, because of the cold, there weren't too many people on the beach. More than I might have expected; there was a gymnastics meet and a swimming meet going on that weekend, so it was a challenge to find a time to swim in the hotel pool when it wasn't full of screeching kids throwing things and splashing. Most of the kids weren't on the beach in the early morning hours, so that's when I went out there. Just me, and some Japanese tourists trying to photograph the sunrise, and locals walking their dogs, and the gulls.
Lots and lots of gulls.
No, I didn't bother taking photos of them. At least not on purpose.
I don't have a photo of it, but I did manage to be on the beach just as the sun finally rose. Saw afterimages for half an hour as a result. It's funny how the upper edge always looks flat as it appears, whether there's clouds for it to hide behind or not.
One of the most interesting things piled up above the tideline were heaps of skate egg cases. (That's what I've been told they are.) Dozens of them mixed in with the bits of shell and broken goggle frames and horseshoe crab tails that formed the upper edge of the high tide mark - or at least some earlier high tide, because none of the tides reached that high during the weekend I was at the beach. Too bad they don't photograph well.
(More shots and closeups of the collage on my Flickr page; follow this link [http://www.flickr.com/photos/8556491@N07/] to get there.)
Don't say I never brought you anything. >:-)
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Date: 2010-03-01 01:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-01 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-01 01:56 pm (UTC)