The Random Pic Pick Game
With the sun finally showing up to work in the western hemisphere, my digits have felt more like digging up hostas than typing a blog post. Instead of jumping back into my 70-degree pool, I’ve decided to focus focus focus focus.
But on what, I ask myself, wringing my hands faster than Lady Macbeth. What should I tell you about?
How about this… I scroll through my camera roll and choose a random travel photo. Then I tell you the story behind it. Sounds like a game I have enough brain power (currently) to play. Here we go.
Eeny meeny…Oh. I love this one.
Petrofilia
Do you know what this official and harsh-sounding term means?
Good guess but no, it has nothing to do with the price of gas—which probably has you, too, fantasizing about how the tears shed into your wallet could be used to fuel your SUV.
Okay, okay, I’ll just skip ahead to the answer: the definition includes me. The one who can barely shoulder her backpack for an entire hike because… rocks… that deserve to be picked up. How can I not be smitten and rehome a dozen or twenty?
The unofficial, nicer-sounding vernacular is rockhounding. Some estimates claim that over a billion people fit into the Rock Hound category.
“By definition,” exclaims Sharon Stouffer from RockRidgeGrit, “if you have even a single rock in your garage or on a dresser you are a rock hound. Let us not forget anyone who wears stone jewelry. Rock hounds oh yeah, for sure”.
I’m not ashamed to admit I’m into petrofilia. My house plant pots are filled with stones I’ve gathered around the yard, block, province, world. In my garage sits an industrial storage tub, too heavy to lift, packed with yet more minerals from my previous gardens.
I love the pebbles-and-rust photo shown earlier – and the experience that went with it – for another reason as well: the bipeds-versus-the-earth component.
Aspect: the world will win
I’m fascinated when natural elements meet human-made ones, especially historic objects whose expiry dates have seemingly passed. Old trailers, mangled fence posts, rusty nails, broken windows in classic cars – they all seem to prove to us over and over again that nature can kick our arses and outlast us. Every. Single. Time.
Back to the pic
My frenemy, ChatGPT, declares that the part we see could be a hinge bracket or grudgeon fitting, mounting bracket, deck hardware base, rigging attachment point, or it could “just as easily be from shore infrastructure, machinery, or industrial equipment that ended up in the water”.
Either way, it’s a humanmade something that now chillaxes on a salty shore.
May Day! May Day!
On a May day (as in the month, not the emergency) in Newfoundland, when cocoa in front of the woodstove would’ve been a warmer choice, we discovered this location by accident. Taking a break from water pipe issues, we were driving south of our cabin on the Irish Loop. I’ll make a guess that we either needed a washroom or food.
Either way, it was a fun and intriguing surprise when we pulled onto the backstreets (well, back street as in singular) of Horn Head near Cappahayden and came across a grassy trail leading to a beach where chunks of what once was a ship have found homes amongst the rocks.
We spent a long time on the shore listening to the waves crashing in, their retreat sounding like Madison Square Garden during a Billy Joel concert. Swoosh… clap clap clap
And investigating bits and bobs that would have a marine enthusiast writhing in ecstasy right then and there. Although, despite suspicions, we didn’t know what they were until the cheek-chilling wind whipped us back towards the grassy shore and we stumbled upon the shipwreck memorial.
“We were exploring the leftovers of a shipwreck?” we whispered, equally appalled and curious.
Especially when we discovered that one of the victims was 3-year-old Betty Munn, who is the reason behind the Peter Pan statue in St. John’s Bowring Park.
The SS Florizel sunk on Sunday, February 24, 1918. Considered a luxury liner, the ship was transporting sixty crew, seventy-six passengers, and 12,000 barrels of cargo to Halifax and then New York, when it encountered a nasty snowstorm. Believing the vessel was further south, and mistaking waves and froth for ice, Captain Martin drove almost full speed into the rugged shore. It was later discovered that the Chief Engineer had slowed the pace in hopes of arriving later to Halifax so that a forced overnight docking would allow him time with his family there.
Shipwrecks along the Newfoundland shore and their “afterbits” aren’t rare. We’d encountered similar pieces on our 2023 trip north of Bishop’s Falls.
And yet they never cease to amaze us.
Humanity’s demise. Nature’s celebration. Beauty on the beach.
How was that for a travel story with probably useless tidbits of info based on a random scroll? Now… go cannonball into the pool. The hostas await.
