A Couple Of Things that made me Look Twice...

...honestly, I thought I'd seen it all; guess not...

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Like the song says, I "don't get around much anymore"...you can tell that from all the pictures I've taken; indeed, I've photographed just about every single natural feature down here ad nauseam. I need to get out there and get with it, find new, exciting places to do the ol' point-and-shoot thing with my little digital camera. I've been meaning to do that, but can't for a while. Wouldn't ya know it, just when I thot I was beginning to get ahead, Mobile Home taxes as well as property taxes are coming due fairly soon, at least the first installment thereof. Never mind that the place I'm living in has been sitting in the same spot since 1972, the Beloved State Of Oregon still classifies it as "mobile". I've been wanting to travel a little more so I can get some unique photos, but that's gonna hafta wait a while.

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Then again, if I take photos of the same old places day after day, perhaps I'm forced to see an "angle" that isn't seen every day, and as such, I've got two such photos which will give you, the reader, a different perspective on things. Or perhaps not. Only you will know for sure; all I do is take 'em and post 'em. This first photo was taken 2 or 3 weeks ago, and I thot for sure there was going to be one heck of a shipwreck; the wind was blowin' and the waves were churnin' as a little sailboat tried gallantly to leave the ocean for the safety of the harbor. As that little boat was coming in, a much bigger boat was going out to sea, and for a moment or so, it looked as if they were gonna collide...Oh, NO! A Maritime Disaster In The Making! Oh, the HUMANITY...Well, of course Nothing Happened, but all the same, I'll just bet the Cap'n of that little boat was sure glad to get in off the ocean; I guess he knew he wasn't gonna have a head-on with that big Dredge Vessel (The "Yaquina"). They passed each other without incident, but for a moment, they really had me goin' there.

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Seen from above, the channel both of these boats are in is actually about a quarter-mile wide, maybe a little more, so there was plenty of room for 'em. I've seen conditions where the water was so rough, that the Coast Guard called small boats back in, saying they couldn't "cross the bar" due to hazardous seas. Once I saw a big ship heading seaward in super-rough waters, and after a half-hour trying to get somewhere, it just turned around and came back in. I've lived down here for going on three years and haven't been on the ocean yet. I still have memories of getting seasick when Dad took our family out on a charter boat out of Westport, Washington. That was over 30 YEARS AGO.

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Now, for the next photo, let me set it up for a moment here so you can really appreciate it for what it is. We're all familiar with Seagulls; they're the scavengers of the ocean. Or the Lake. Or any body of water. I've seen 'em hangin' around lakes in the depths of a snowy ice-cold winter; they're so stupid they don't fly south...they'd rather stay where they are and freeze. Indeed, the Seagull is not known for its intellectual ability. They have the Power of Flight, for cryin' out loud, so fly somewhere warmer! But, nooooo... They fly so gracefully, and then they'll just about kill each other for a morsel of someone's lunch. Once, I tossed a chicken bone to a seagull, and without reservation, he gulped it down...a chicken bone! They must have digestive enzymes approaching the strength of Sulfuric Acid. GULP! Down the hatch! Anyhow, I was walking down the beach a coupla weeks ago and saw a gull poised on the jetty, and something about its appearance just kinda struck me as weird...

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I thot the Seagull had a branch caught in its beak, and I actually felt sorry for it and wanted to help, but of course the Gulls keep their distance. But it was sitting there motionless, in some sort of avian degree of somnambulance and if it was going thru any pain or inconveniece, it sure wasn't gonna let me know. Birds do that; if they get sick and weak, they won't let other birds know that, lest they become easy prey. So what was going on with this gull? It was trying to eat a STARFISH. A starfish!

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I don't know about you, but to me, it looks like there just ain't a whole lotta edible meat on a Starfish. They're pointy, their outer covering resembles extra-coarse-grade sandpaper mixed in with the texture of asphalt, and once a Starfish finds a rock to its liking, it takes the force of a crowbar to pry 'em loose. That seagull trying to eat a starfish would be like me trying to eat a fencepost. Gulp. Later on, I saw a seagull in approximately the same spot, sans Starfish; but since all Gulls look alike to me, it may or may not have been the bird pictured here. Have you ever eaten cold fried chicken after it's been sitting in the fridge all night? I imagine that would be a similar experience to eating a starfish. In retrospect, maybe it's a good thing the Gull managed to pry the starfish loose from its rock. Otherwise, the gull might've tried to eat the boulder that the starfish was stuck onto. They're not terribly smart, you know...

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And now, having read this post, you can readily admit to anyone, any time, anywhere, that Yes, You Have Indeed Seen It All. The vastness of the ocean reduced to a couple instances of rampant paranoia on my part. There. I'm done... and all of a sudden, I'm hungry for some fried chicken...