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Rarely do I feel compelled to photograph rocks, trees, moss, or anything else in nature. It's simply not very visually interesting to me. Most other landscape photography doesn't interest me either. But, today I could not help myself. I was standing on the bank of the Row River near Cottage Grove, Oregon. The bedrock is exposed in most of the river from aggressive gold mining in the past. On one of these rocky protrusions I saw this almost perfectly spherical rock sitting in a bowl-shaped depression. This is an area that many people visit in the summer. In the winter it would be covered by water. This rock was obviously shapen by tumbling and swirling around in the bowl underwater all winter. It amazed me that no one had taken the rock from the bowl. It amazed me that the rock must have been tumbling around in that depression for at least an entire winter. This also means that most likely, it would only take one winter to shape the rock. I would also surmise that any spherical rock one would find would have to be shaped in a similar way.

Coincidently, this also happens to be the spot on the river where Buster Keaton intentionally crashed a steam locomotive as part of a stunt for the silent film, The General.

I know this still not very interesting, but sometimes it's not a bad thing to ponder the details. And, in case you are wondering, I left the rock.