Headed over to the coast yesterday for a quick walk on the beach, then into town for the farmer’s market. But when I got to my favorite walking beach, I turned right instead of left as I usually do, and then I just kept going. By the time I made it back to the car and into town, the farmer’s market was pretty much over.
But it was worth it. The walk was beautiful. First I had to go down and check out the cliffs, right? Which were a ways down there.
If you look carefully at the middle of the white patch of sand in the middle of the picture, you’ll see an odd-looking bit of driftwood sticking up. More on that later.
The cliffs just got better and better as I got closer to them. See for yourself.
On the way there, I spotted that bit of driftwood I mentioned above, so detoured to see what it was. It got more and more interesting the closer I got. I’ve decided to name it Rorschach Driftwood, because I kept seeing different things in it from different distances and angles* (being me, mostly critters of various types and degrees of fantasticalness). Again, see for yourself:
Once I got to the cliffs, I had to at least go the rest of the way to the point and see what was on the other side, right? I mean, I was almost there. The rocks were covered with barnacles, and also fascinating and fantastical in their own right. Here you go.
Anyone know why the barnacles would grow in a circular clump like that?
Having gotten down there, there was another point I wanted to get to, but I’d already walked longer than I’d planned, and still had to walk all the way back, so turned around. Someday., when I feel up to a three-hour walk.
On the way back, a helicopter passed me headed the same direction. The first thing I noticed about it, other than its existence, was that it was flying fairly slowly–a couple of seagulls were keeping pace with it. It flew on a ways, then stopped and hovered . . . and hovered . . . and hovered . . . and hovered . . . . Which started to bug me, because it was hovering right about where I had to turn into land to get back to my car, and it was loud and kicking up a fair amount of sand. I couldn’t figure out why it just stayed there–until I got closer. Then I saw that they had lowered someone on a line and were reeling them in:
They did it a couple more times–lower someone down, who would get over to the cliff and to a dark something, vaguely person-sized, hanging there, and then the copter would reel the person back in again. I decided it was probably a Coast Guard training exercise.
The balls of my feet were feeling a bit tender by then–I’d done the walk barefoot, and it’s a bit like walking on sandpaper. But it was all worth it, even being late for the farmer’s market.
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* In order, what I saw was: Dog or wolf or wolverine; bear ridden by. . an elf?; fish; whale; frog emerging from a log, with Nessie’s head next to it; frog or lizard, with periscope
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