Friday Photo Shoot Out: Rocks

Rocks this week for the My Town Shootout, chosen by Chef E. There are plenty of rocks around, lots of buildings made of rocks, but I just didn’t get around for a tour of them these past weeks. So here’s a little tour of my bookcase instead.
I like to bring something back when I travel, something small and not heavy. Often it’s a small glass bottle or vase, of which I have a good dozen now. Occasionally rocks, so here are my rocks.
These two are from Iceland, my northernmost rocks (see here). Nice bits of smoothened lava picked off the southern beaches. I really like the feel of them, and they’re so lightweight! It would be neat to go back to that part of Iceland now. I’m sure the beach looks quite different with the new layer of ash and rocklets laid down courtesy of the volcano erupting quite nearby. My previously northernmost rock was from Skye, off of Scotland, but it got lost.
This one is from my favorite beach (see here)(sshhhh! You’re not supposed to make off with bits of state parks! Though one time I was there I saw a couple with a pickup just filling it with beach stones. Alas, there was nobody around to report them to. Damned thieves.). When I had an apartment I could put nails in the wall of, it used to hang in the kitchen along with all my little framed photos. It’s shrinking over the years. Every time I move it, it leaves a little sand behind.
. Another one from San Diego, this from the desert in the eastern part of the county.
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This one’s from Oran, in Algeria. Yes, Sheldon, Americans can go to Algeria. The Algerians don’t mind, as long as you have a visa. I’ve been there twice, to Algiers and Oran, and we’ve talked of arranging a camping trip into the desert, with camels and servants and big tents, but so far it hasn’t happened.
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Then there are two pebbles from the beaches in Northern France. Most of the beach stones are white there, but there are black ones and reddish ones mixed in. This one is from Fecamp, on one of my solo trips (see here). They make Benedictine liqueur there, and splash it on crepes for dessert. It was a cold, cloudy, windy weekend in the fall when I was there. The town was all but empty and closed. I like that sometimes. A different kind of getaway.
The other is from Dieppe. That was a stressful day. I went with a friend and her husband and dog, and everybody had a different idea of what would be fun to do. Which is just normal, but we didn’t always do a great job at appreciating each other’s interests, or think the dog should have such a big vote. Plus there was a mountain of tension between them, and a third person always ends up acting like a buffer or trying to stay out of the way. The seafood was fabulous, though. It was the first time I tried a platter of Stuff that Lives between the Rocks, and it was so fresh and I was so hungry I just loved it. An excellent glass of white wine didn’t hurt, either.
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This is the only rock I ever bought. From a skinny kid in Tunisia. My friend Kamel took me on a week-long road trip, and we stopped in touristy places like Matmara (where the underground homes in Star Wars were filmed), and the desert oasis of Tozer, but my favorite place was always in-between. We stopped once at a smaller oasis, for orange soda and some lunch, and it was quite a place for geodes. Any car that stopped would be swarmed by kids selling them. No need to get out and go to the geode shops. Kamel thought I should disdain the semi-beggars and their wares, but I did actually want one.

And now.... Putting Rocks on Top of Other Rocks! It was the Icelandic ones that insisted, I swear. They love that kind of thing. They don’t feel at home if they’re not stacked. The Fecamp pebble was a splitter. Just didn’t want to go. I would have fiddled with it more, but the Torrey Pines sandstone was shedding all over the table and the cats wanted in (or was it out?)(there may have been a cat going each way), so I let it go.

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So that's my Shootout. Join in the fun here!

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