Zathras Warn, but No One Listen to Zathras by Coreopsis Major Bloden Melen, a dodecahedron
January 27th, 2008 11:48 AM / Location: 28.597390,-95.97958How do you get lost in time when you don't have a timeship? Time is all around. One of the best places to observe time at work is at the shore. Matagorda Peninsula is a particularly excellent example. Three of us, with time on our hands and a set of wheels, set out to watch time at work. We had varied histories; John had never been there, PGJ had been there many times, and I had been there once before, an outing in August 2003 remembered for its excellent seashells and the baby crustaceans who sloshed under the edges of my swimsuit when I jumped in the Gulf, and itched like blazes against my skin. (And I was already itching from having shelled fresh-off-the-boat shrimp without gloves the night before: I don't get along with chitin.)
Now it was winter, but wandering the beach in the cold in a coat was far more comfy than brushing itty bitty crabs out of my suit. That embarrassing aside over, let's get to the evidence of time we saw all around us.
Partners in Crime
It's good to adventure with people you've known for nearly a third of your life....
Matagorda Right Now
Most of our documentation will be about biological and geologic time, but humans have made much of time in the 4.5 years since I was last here. This nature center is new, as are many of the homes we drove by on the access road to get out here. When I visited in August of 2003, it was only about 6 weeks after Hurricane Claudette caused widespread flooding (and two small tornadoes!) in the area. On the access road about 1 house in 4 was gone, replaced with house-sized piles of demolition debris. The hurricane didn't really blow them down, but it did cause sufficient damage to many structures make demolition and rebuilding reasonable. Now there were whole new rows of condos, and more vacation rental signs.
Evidence of Shindigs Past (shiny!)
Evidence if time on the short scale: a sand castle of sorts, partially swept away by the tide, and adorned with the debris of someone's bottle rockets. Big Damn Bottle Rockets.
Tide Pools
Partners in crime examine a tide pool. Matagorda has one low tide and one high tide per day. PGJ finds that a little odd, since he grew up in Seattle, where there are two highs and two lows per day. We arrived as the tide was coming in. I grew up landlocked in Ohio, so I'm still sort of mystified by tides....
Glare of Winter
It certainly felt like the day was longer down there than up in MA where I live, and it turns out to be true: there's about an hour of additional day length at this time of year. Besides, it's easier to get lost in what you're doing when what you're doing is finding quicksand. I think it's in the left middle field, in this shot.
Life on Mars
Not much grows in the beach sand except some grass and succulents. "Succulent - having tender, new growth or thick, fleshy tissues which store water, such as cactus." (From http://hcs.osu.edu/mg/manual/glossary.htm) No, gentlemen, it did not mean I wanted to EAT the plants.
Sandstorm
None of my photographs captured it well, but it was gusty. We were watching the just barely perceptible procession of sand down the shoreline. It was a little more apparent than usual, today.
Mystery Object Theater 3000
Time has given this old... thing... quite the beating. Comment if you know what it is!
Time and Rust Wait for No Robot
It's sorta like time is the carrier wave, or solvent, for all of the processes and materials that are in flux on the beach. Here you can see how time has allowed oxidization to do its work on the iron of the mystery object.
We Claim this Driftwood for, um, Madagascar!
We also gave some thought to history, both the history of the Gulf (pirates!) and the history of our senses of humor (arrrrrrr, me hearties!)
Brownian Beach Hiking
You can see the track our movements through time on this stretch of the beach, as we examine the big logs of driftwood.
On Ur Beach, Bein A Sundial
Our shadows are already pretty long, as it gets later. It was still pretty bright, though.
Incoming!
We stood around this log for a good while watching the tide come in. When I (this is John) was a child on vacation one time, I was debating walking into the ocean. I told my dad I'd wait until the waves stopped coming. Dad pointed out that I'd be waiting a long time. One could get lost in time, there on the beach, growing old, still waiting for the waves to stop coming....
Hop
I love standing by the tide long enough that it makes you jump back to avoid having your toes dampened. It's so easy to get lost in conversation and let that happen.... Another thing my dad said to me once on the beach: waves have been coming for billions of years, and for billions of years to come, and yet no two waves are exactly the same. That's astonishing if you think about it.
Bridge to Nowhere
In front of the bridge out to the breakwater, which we did NOT go out on in this wind even though other people were doing it, there are these interesting chunks of rock. I wonder who left this granite here? What was here earlier? A pavilion? A playground? A pyramid?
Windswept
The previous day's rain was still visible on the horizon. The next day's rain had yet to arrive. Time flew while we were down there; I didn't want to leave.
Profiles
The shadows were longer by now, and I got a great silhouette of us on the ramp up from the beach. I'm just a lump with a camera, but John has a nifty profile.
I Come Here For the Ice Cream
We finished off our trip with a time-sensitive snack. I wish we could get Blue Bell Ice Cream in MA....
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Awesome, thank you for telling us your guess! I was thinking some kind of float or tank but I had no idea forwhat. (Though there are a lot of oil rigs offshore around there I think?)
I wonder if Matagorda is on a rift of some sort-- it seems like the kind of place to be.
It's clearly the epaulette from a dreadbot flung backwards at least four hundred years. From the look of it, a Wyeth-Hyundai 9950 (the E or G series, probably). Whoever slung that tow cable around the front probably got a nasty shock--those epaulettes were wrongly criticized and have been phased out in favor of newer, more nimble units that also lack some of this "baroque ornamentation." But in its day, the WH9950's shoulders could draw in a couple thousand watts from just about any radiant source and could absorb 1000 ergs/cm from anything smaller than a cruiser. Just like one of our present-day capacitors, they could hold those charges for a long time, too. I'd guess the idiot salvage operator who did that spot welded his teeth together, or worse.
Also, excellent work.
I'm about to leave a coast, haven't yet; and somehow this has made me pre-nostalgic. Excellent.
My guess on the mystery object is that it was the pontoon for a floating pier (the kind to which boats might moor, hence needing to rise and fall with the tide), detached by a storm and drifted there. Or, perhaps more logically, it fell through from a rift to the future, part of an as yet un-invented melancholy machine.