And I'm glad I wasn't the only one around to appreciate it...
I know morning comes early for everyone (yes, including me), but sometimes I'm still surprised how few people ever get up to watch this daily spectacle. There should be little crowds gathering at the lake shore every morning, chatting...drinking their coffee...walking their dogs...and ensuring that whatever else happens in the hours to come, the day began with beauty.
Before any real sunrise action started to take place, I wandered up and down the shoreline searching for an interesting angle or feature to highlight for the blog. The waves were enormous and crashed up against the ubiquitous giant piles of old concrete with a vengeance sending fountains of spray several feet into the air and coating the bouldery barrier with a thick layer of ice. I noticed something odd about how the ice had formed around these chunks. Rather than a smooth single layer, it had built up around each rock's contours like a topographical map...
It almost looked to me as though a portion of the Earth's scenic program was degrading back into code...pixel by pixel...EVIDENCE that our lives are all a big illusion! Maybe God is just some nerdy programmer geeking out on humanity from his little cubicle in the sky...
Well, ok...probably not. But it still looks pretty funky!
I have another (possibly better) hypothesis as to why this has happened. I'll bet it has something to do with the surface tension of water.
When a wave crashes against the boulders...
...and giant splashes of water reach up and over their rocky tops...
BRRRR! That's cold!!!
...a second before freezing, the water might pool up in little puddles wherever it finds a flatish surface on which to reside. The edges of these puddles would defined by a tiny ridge due to surface tension (if you don't know what I mean by this, spill some water on the floor and get right down next to it...the little roundish edges on the droplets and puddles are caused by surface tension). Because it's SO FREAKIN' COLD here, it wouldn't take these puddles long to freeze--maybe just a few seconds. The frozen puddle would provide a nice, clean, flat surface for the next puddle to build upon, and voila! In no time at all the rocks are encased in a series of frozen puddles. 
This is just my own personal hypothesis...if anyone else knows the truth, I'd love to hear it!
In the meantime...have a great day!
Thanks, again for a bit of enlightenment in my day. I think you're absolutely right about starting each day with a bit of beauty. I also think your hypothesis sounds more than plausible.
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