Frozen Ocean and Snow Dunes: Not Your Average Day At The Beach

Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.  I've been visiting this small seaside resort at least once a year since before I was born.  I've seen the surf churned up by passing hurricanes, fled the fury of intense summer thunderstorms, and endured a creepy week of waiting for a dead body to wash ashore.  I've even seen a little snow, once or twice.  This past weekend, after an estimated 60-plus visits to this place, I saw something I had never witnessed before - and in all likelihood will not see again.

Let's start with the dunes.

Dune - mostly snow - looking north.

Detail, dune snow - looking south.

Okay - I've seen this, before.  Snow on the sand.  A little unusual for Delaware, but no big deal.  I would not have bothered to come down off of the boardwalk in my totally inappropriate shoes for snow.  

Here's what intrigued me...

Frozen Ocean.

That's ice.  A lot of it. In the Atlantic ocean. The MID-Atlantic ocean. Sorry shoes - must get a closer look at this...

High-ice-- I mean, tide.

Shaken, not stirred.  Okay, stirred.

Polar bear, or just polar bear-size chunk of ice?

Now I know how sea glass is made.

The next day, sleet and freezing rain had me shooting from my room above the boardwalk.  The ice had thickened...

The cold never bothered me anyway.  Wait - yes it does!

No swimming near jetty.

Mmm... drippy!

As amazing as it was to see the ocean full of ice, nearly motionless, and eerily quiet, it was still nice to see this - on the third day - just as I was about to start singing Moby's "When It's Cold I'd Like To Die..."

Sunreturn.  Order is restored.

It felt good to get the camera out for a little exercise.  Maybe I'll do it again, soon...

Oh, The Places You've Been

Time to get silly for a minute. For a change - har har. One of those last few posts from the 2004 Maine Lighthouse Excursion and Symposium For Two featured a shot of my car chasing a bunch of lobster traps, and it reminded me that I have other shots of that car's adventures (and those of her predecessor). Photographically -- well, what can I say? They're pictures of cars. Mostly. Above, [Maris] shoots a Norfolk Southern grain train in the yard at Lexington, Kentucky in 1998. We put 30,000 miles on that blue Chevy in one year.

Skip to 2000. Here's the Baby Car watching the westbound Capitol Limited at Boyds, MD.

Skip a ahead - a lot - to December 2009. Our cars, shivering and muttering great streams of frigid profanity under the first of eleventy major snowstorms. Boo.

Skip back. To 1998. Oh, just do it, please. Now we're in Kentucky, near the Cumberland Gap. We had pulled over to photograph wild turkeys, but those turkeys can move, as it turns out.

Skip ahead again. Please? An encore presentation. It's more about the bridge (Barronvale, in Somerset County, PA - 2001) than the car, but I like how the car looks as though she's been told "stay," and she's being a very good car indeed.

See that "road" that goes into the woods to the left of the frame? Pictures can't do justice to that passage, somewhere in western PA in 2001. A seriously jacked-up Jeep with those big fat off-road tires would have been a more appropriate conveyance for that, but the Baby Car is nothing if not intrepid.

Scoot back just a year. I know, I know. I'm sorry*. This is the substitute baby car that the insurance people provided for our 2000 Florida Keys honeymoon - following the smooshing of the real Baby Car in Florida City (barf), just a couple of miles from the start of the Overseas Highway. This was truly an infant vehicle, too - like 25 miles on it when we picked it up.

In the Lower Keys the following year, here's the real Baby Car, almost as good as new and thoroughly enjoying the Sunshine State. Splash, splash!

Flash-forward to 2007. Happy Valentine's Day, Baby Car. Have some icicles. Boo.

That's better. Riding the ferry from Okracoke Island to Cedar Island, North Carolina in 2007. Wait 'til you see the lighthouse pics from that trip. You probably won't have to wait long.

Until next time - stay warm, friends.
-J

* I'm not really sorry. :)

Dear Santa - White Sky Poo Was NOT On Our List

Dear Santa - Hi. How are you? How is Mrs. Claus? I hope you are recovering from your trans-global trek to places where people believe in Jesus and you. Thank you for being so jolly, and for all the presents. I especially wanted to thank you for the snow that fell on us down in the Northern Neck of Virginia on Christmas and today. It was white and clingy. When I went out to shoot this picture of the rowboat and pier, I thought it was nice that it was snowing on Christmas.

This morning, on the other hand, I began to wonder about your mood. I mean, Four & Twenty Blackbirds would have been cool, but Four & THIRTY-SEVEN seems a bit much.

But then you gave us cardinals - even a camouflaged girl one, and a hiding one - so we thought "Yay, Santa's still the bestest!"

And the Pier and frozen creek - nice touch, Father Christmas!

It was also pretty cool of you to make sure no one suggested eating outside, this time.

The tree was nice, too. So clever of you to put all the most enticing and breakable ornaments above the Toddler Line, too.

I liked this cardinal the best. I named him Chet.

These two cardinals were feisty. You bring the coolest stuff, St. Nick!

But seriously - enough with the snow. Look how cold those birds are!

And thanks for our own little house, back in the land of Not-A-Flake-Of-Snow. Sorry we forgot to leave you any eggnog- I mean, milk and cookies. Hope you found our tree up to snuff. Maybe someday we'll get a chimney for you to come down. Just please - no more white sky poo when we're trying to drive. Thanks dude. You rock!

Love, Joe and [Maris]

White Stuff

Snow. I live in Maryland. We get a good two-foot snow once every seven-to-ten years. That's the rule. It's only February 12th, and we've had a two, a two-and-a half and a one-and-a-half. Not funny. It's fun and a challenge to shoot, but I'm a tropical guy, so my patience is limited. But you snow-lovers out there - enjoy the few good shots I have. Above is the January storm of 1996, Frederick, MD.

Sad, Cold Lantern - Germantown, MD - 2/14/07.

Westbound Q139 at Washington Grove, MD on 1/27/09.

Tankers In The Snow - Washington Grove, MD - 1/27/09.

Foo Dog Not Amused - Germantown, MD - 12/19/09.

Foo Dog Even Less Amused - Germantown, MD - 2/6/10. (by the way - this little guy is under a porch roof - these storms were beyond ridiculous)

Okay, kind of a throwaway shot, but that's close to three feet of snow on my shed. DC Metro simply does NOT get snow like this. 2/6/10.

Snowy Window - Germantown, MD - 2/10/10.

Storm Door Snowed Shut - Germantown, MD - 2/10/10.

Our new lamp post, installed days before the 2/6/10 blizzard. I'll bet it's none too amused, either.

Okay. There. I got through it. On to warmer topics soon. Stay warm!

Closer To Home

Okay gang. Short and sweet. Here are a few more images of the places I've called home. Leading off is a time-lapse shot of Rockville Pike in front of Wintergreen Plaza in Rockville, MD from December 1992.

Front porch view - Christmas, 1989.

Two feet of snow - very rare in Rockville! February 1983.

Also rare - this aerial view of our house (the one with the tan roof), courtesy of my friend the pilot - 1986.

Long nighttime B&W of the old jungle gym at Rock Creek Valley Elementary School - Rockville, MD - 1987. Nearly froze my feet right off, walking around the neighborhood in the snow half the night!

Here's what my alma mater Rockville High School looked like from the air in December of 1986. It has since been renovated so extensively that almost nothing from the structure above survives, except for the theater building at the far left. You really can't go back, I guess. Not that I'd want to, but still. Ch-ch-ch-changes...

Um, self-portrait. Germantown, MD - 1995.

THREE feet of snow! Enough for legitimate drifts! Frederick, MD - January, 1996.

Join me next time for whatever it is I find myself in the mood for - providing, of course, that whatever that turns out to be has already been scanned.