Day 2

Today was Christmas!  Merry Christmas everyone!

It started with me waking up late, daydreaming myself awake.  Kinda lovely to do sometimes.  I got up, had a small breaky, sat on the balcony.  We’d already exchanged gifts beforehand (since my sister couldn’t come with us, we had our celebrations last week), but my dad still had a couple gifts to give to my mom, so after that we sat on the balcony and took in some sun with our coffees.  After a nice morning walk around the Pass with my mom, we went back to the condo for bacon & eggs and cleaned the place up for our dinner company….. then another walk …… and another….. then friends came over for Christmas dinner and we had a blast.  Such fun people.  I hope I’m that fun when I’m their age.  Of course, they’re my parents’ age too but umm…… no, I really don’t have a way to get my foot out of my mouth there.  New topic!

So today on the beach I was walking mostly in the water to search for the bigger shells, so I didn’t see as much interesting stuff today, but here’s the daily list anyway:

• dolphins several times, lots of them including the mutant one!  In years past, we noticed a dolphin with a sliced dorsal fin….. we suspect it was from a boating encounter.  There very well could be hundreds like that, but we like to think it’s the same families that stick around the area, with his sighting meaning all is well with them.
• several decent-sized shells with their residents still alive inside…… I threw them back into the ocean to hopefully have a few more days (or more!) of life
• a large shell with resident inside…… I’m gonna research what kind he was, because I’ve seen the shells before and they’re beautifully decorated, so I’m curious anyway.  I’m told I found a sunray venus shell….. go here to view and learn: http://www.shellmuseum.org/Sanibel/shells_nimbosa.html  I had seen it near the beginning of my walk, and was dumbfounded when I couldn’t find it after the initial sighting (I’m a pro at shelling…… I don’t often lose a shell to the waves once I’ve seen it), especially since it was so large.  Anyway, after giving up (doesn’t come easily to me), I continued my walk, well, shelling session anyway haha….. and on my way back I was about to leave when I saw it again.  I’m sure it’s the same one I’d been searching for earlier because it was like a rose in a field of thorns — nothing else had been that large, and that particular type of shell wasn’t even found in pieces anywhere where I’d walked….. so I went to get it, and sure enough I lost it two more times before I finally grabbed it.  The problem was that it was so heavy it only strayed to the visible area on occasion — otherwise it stayed where the waves were crashing (hence the water was sandy and I couldn’t even see my feet in less than a foot of water) and there his colours blended in.  But I got him.  And of course threw him far into the ocean again.  I have to admit, there’s something kinda humbling about holding an entire creature in your hand who created this beautiful piece of art to house himself….. used to living almost entirely at the hands of the ocean.  He really has no defenses besides his shell….. anyway…..
• Maddy and another heron!  …… they weren’t hanging out though.
• fishermen
• seemingly more people…… I think partially because it was a fair bit warmer today, plus everyone’s done their Christmas shopping!
• (earlier, by the Pass) ~12 foot tall bird of paradise plant!!!!  seriously incredible.  I vaguely remember discovering it last year but boy is it impressive.  The flower parts are different colours from the regular bird of paradise wild oranges and purples….. I found out from here http://www.mgonlinestore.com/Juncea/  that it’s the white variety…… much larger than the regular orange kind.
• 2 dogs in motorboats, 1 laying down for a nap, and 1 riding at the bow of his boat.  It’s not that uncommon really, but I always find it amusing.
• 1 dude paragliding?  I’m not sure the term for it.  Yup, turns out that’s it.  Only this dude was motorized.  And boy was he flying LOW!

Well that’s all I can think of right now, mostly because I’m tired!  If I remember more, you can be sure I’ll get back to you with it.

Again, happy holidays to you, and I hope you all had a Merry Christmas  🙂

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My Spontaneous Field Trip

Today I went to Miller Hall’s geology museum, just for a visit. It’s been a while since I’ve been, and seeing as I pulled another all-nighter last night, it was raining, and the lights looked so inviting, I figured it was about time.

I started off by looking at the selection of rocks and minerals used in Geology class for first year engineers, which involved a little wistful reflection of those times so many years ago when we had to perform all the tests on the samples to determine their properties and later their names. I always have loved Geology, but I was going through so much during that time, I couldn’t even enjoy it then. 😦 I moved on to the end of the hall, where they had a few little samples of random rocks, and then I backtracked to my favourite part: the collection of meteorites. I had my music on high, and just immersed myself. It was wonderful. Peaceful. There’s also the additional effect it has on me, based on feelings I have toward nature (see the post directly below this for more info on that), so it was really a good mental break.
   
I then moved to the main room, where there appeared to be a class trip for some French-speaking kids, maybe grade 5 or so. I turned my music up and toured around, stopping at some of my favourites — the tall amethyst sliced-in-half-geode, galena, pyrite, azurite, the gorgeous chalcopyrite, molybdenum, smithsonite, sodalite, tourmaline, and of course all kinds of quartz….. and yes, I did just go to a random minerals site alphabetically 🙂 There were, of course, many others, but far be it from me to remember what they were. I’m always kind of surprised they don’t have (or maybe I just can’t find it) one of my favourites, lab-made bismuth. I had one once, and it disappeared somewhere, but it had what I just found out is called “hopper” qualities — where basically the mineral forms an empty cube without a top, and then stacks these box-like structures all over itself in really neat designs. It’s also got some iridescence going on, which is always pretty neat. Oh, and there was ulexite, which I love to look at because it has fiber-optic properties. Very cool.
      
I love just going to places like that randomly, it’s so inspirational and relaxing at the same time. It was also nice to see some of the children fascinated in the minerals, while the others ran around yelling. Haha, I guess it brought me back to my youth….. not a bad place to visit every once in a while….. 🙂