I conducted my blog observations on the 23rd of March (Monday) from 9 a.m. till noon. Secret Beach set the scene for my observational analyses. Accompanied by my friend (Chelsea) and her wirehaired mutt (Meadow), we made our way through the recreational courts onto a dirt-patch road. We transitioned from a heavily artificially man-made setting into a predominately primitive and seemingly unblemished part of nature. The concrete roads winding through the distance connecting asphalt lots for vehicles to park in morphed into creeks and lakes of snaking streams separating patches of land. The ambiance of Secret Beach offered a stark contrast to the ambiance of the Austin streets. The hustle & bustle embedded in the city streets vastly differed from the tranquil & serene atmosphere surrounded in Secret Beach.
Silly side note: Sand is called sand because it’s between sea and land, cue rimshot.
On our trek towards waterside, we came across several joggers and a few dog-owners. I began contemplating the concept of interspecies slavery and a rush of thoughts befell me; some silly, some peripherally related, some intuitively inspired. My first thought had to do with Stockholm syndrome and how it’s an actual thing. In my mind, I rationalized the phenomenon by thinking about the nature of dogs and their relationship with humans. It’s crazy to think how once-upon-a-time wolfs now express unwavering loyalty for their captors.
My second thought was seemingly more ludicrous than the first: I reminisced on the platinum hit-single “Who Let the Dogs Out” preformed by the British group The Baha Men. And then I thought: I would let the dogs out. Chelsea, espousing a free rein mentality, allowed Meadow to roam freely on our walk through nature. I felt she epitomized the concept expressed in Aldo Leopold’s quote “Nonconformity is the highest evolutionary attainment of social animals” from A Sand County Almanac.
Along the way, Meadow met a number of dogs – all of which he familiarized himself with using the instinctual butt sniff. We made our way to the sandy beach filled with pebbles and stones where we came across a group of similarly shaped rocks placed in a circular configuration. There was an inner set of rocks inside an outer arrangement. The outer ring contained 15 rocks and the inner 13. Chelsea rearranged them so the outer ring had 13 rocks and the inner ring 12 with one in the center; she discarded the extra 2 rocks. I surveyed the stones splayed out on the sand in search of flat oval shaped ones for skipping purposes. I gathered a good number of stones before making my way towards the water and skipping them. After running out of stones to skip, we crossed a creek and ventured into a scarcely forested area. We followed a dirt trail and hiked our way inwards. The path, sporadically shared with a jogger or dog-walking owner, became less and less traversable; as the dirt trail dwindled the wild growing vegetation increased. We eventually reached our point of return and made our way back towards the parking lot. The weather throughout our hike felt bearably warm with a spring breeze supplemented by shady protection from the clouds.