Plate Ice Paradise

Tonight's sunset was AWESOME!  We drove a few miles down the shore to see if there was any ice left after today's insane winds (which continue to blow as I write this).  Yesterday there was ice going out across the lake as far as the eye could see.  Today that ice is gone, but there remain pockets of ice that had already been built up along the shoreline.  We found one such amazing stretch of shoreline by driving slowly along the shoulder of the highway and peering down through the trees at the beach.  This spot looked pretty good from the highway, but it looked AMAZING when we got down to the beach!  Large mounds of plate ice had been sort of mashed/fused together by the wave action from the lake.  Some of the plates were sticking up at all different angles.  In other areas the plates were all laying more or less flat, like you see in the lower right of this photo.  The plates that were laying flat were reflecting the light from the sky, making for one of the most eye-catching ice scenes that I've ever seen.  Topping off this incredible ice was this majestic cloud which, despite the high winds, was hardly moving at all.  We watched the cloud turn from grey to orange to pink and back to grey again as the sun went down.  This is a sunset that will live forever in my memory as one of the most glorious sunsets of my life.  What made it absolutely perfect is that I got to share the whole experience with the woman I love, who in exactly one month will be my wife :-)