Saturday Sunset over Grand Portage Bay

 

This evening's sunset was pretty amazing!  We had decided that today was going to be a "lazy Saturday" and that we weren't going to do our usual errands and sightseeing that we typically do on Saturdays.  Instead we just took it easy and hung around the house, which was a nice change of pace. As the day drew to a close, however, we did have to venture just down the road from the house once we saw the sky starting to light up at sunset. It ended up being one of the prettiest sunsets so far this winter!  

Fall Colors at Lower Hackberry

 

All this snow and cold weather lately has me thinking of warm days in the southwest. This photo is of the fall colors along the Lower Hackberry Canyon hike in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument of southern Utah. 

A Superior Afternoon

 

The early part of this afternoon along the Lake Superior shoreline sure was beautiful.  Despite the brutal wind, the blue sky and puffy clouds made for some fun explorations of the ice-covered shore.  About an hour after this photo was made the sky had completely clouded over and not long after that the wind (which had already been nasty) picked up even more and it started to snow pretty hard. One of the reasons why we love living where we do... you never know what each day is going to bring. 

February Blizzard!

Today was a great day for plow photography!  The plows were certainly busy as heavy snow fell throughout most of the day.  At times it was coming down so thick I was amazed that I was still able to get sharp images of the trucks. My camera's autofocus kept catching the falling snow often making my backgrounds out of focus.  We sure do have a lot of snow this year, and it just keeps coming!

Blue Winter Sky over Little John Lake

 

A beautiful February afternoon overlooking Little John Lake near the eastern border of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Even in the depths of a harsh Minnesota winter there are places where the water doesn't freeze, making for intriguing views such as this. 

Stuck in slush

 

This past Friday was a deceptively beautiful day.  I say deceptively because at first glance upon seeing this photo of McFarland Lake you might think it was a calm and warm day. The reality is that the temperature was hovering right around zero degrees and the winds were gusting to 45 MPH. While I was relatively protected from the wind at the vantage point these photos were taken from, conditions out in the middle of the lake looked a bit worse. There were a couple of snowmobilers that were out there stuck in slush on the surface of the ice. I can't say that I would have wanted to be in their shoes. After a few minutes of watching them, however, they were able to free their sleds and went on their way. 

Rings around the Sun AND Moon today!

 

We spent most of the day today exploring the forest roads between Grand Portage and Grand Marais, ending our backroads journey with a stop in Grand Marais for a late lunch and some grocery shopping.  We got food from Hungry Hippie Tacos and drove over to the harbor to eat. When we pulled up to the view of the harbor, there was a huge ring around the sun. It was crazy beautiful. Right when we got out to take some photos, a large flock of gulls took flight and flew around over the lighthouse.  And, right now as I type this, there is a giant ring around the moon as well!  So cool.