I didn't have long....

Just an hour on my way home to try and do something with the trees coated with ice and snow.

 

The sun only came out for a few minutes.

 

 

I was having trouble capturing the scene. Not only because the light was hit and miss, but composition wasn't easy for me at all.

 

 

The conditions were really neat, but I couldn't find any stands of hardwoods with blue sky behind them.

 

 

 

As soon as the sun came out water and chunks of ice were falling from the trees.

 

 

 

I tried several different forest roads, but none of it was very good.

 

 

 

It was only a small stretch of about ten miles where the trees looked like this. I did what I could with the time I had but don't feel great about the results.



 







Strange weather...

I was on my way to northern Wisconsin and found the trees glazed with ice.

 

So I turned on hwy 77 and drove towards Clam Lake.

 

 

 

I pulled onto a gravel road and tried to do something with the cool conditions.

 

 

 

 

 

It was a bit windy and a mix of rain and snow. I took a walk in the woods near Day Lake.

 

 

 

 

 

I hadn't expected to photograph anything and only had two hours to before it got dark, it was good enough.

 









Back to Teddy....

We drove four hours from the Black Hills of South Dakota up to Theodore Roosevelt National Park at Medora North Dakota. We wouldn't have much time to explore, as we were leaving at dark.

 

 

 

 

 

As soon as I saw the clouds and sky the drive was worth it.

 

 

The way the clouds move over the open landscape of North and South Dakota is one of the things I love about those places.

 

 

 

The wind was blowing more than 20mph and really waving the grass around.

 

 

After only ten minutes the sun disappeared behind some clouds and the scene vanished,

so we headed to a petrified log nearby.

 

 

 

 

The perspective and view was very different depending which side I was on. I liked them both, but shot many more with the light.

 

 

This bison cow is walking through a prairie dog town near the Little Missouri River.

 

 

The park is home to about 150 wild horses. This mare was part of a band of about twenty grazing near the road.

 

 

 

 

The group included two foals that were racing each other across the grassy slopes.

 

 

 

 

 

They'd sprint one way for a hundred yards, turn the corner and sprint back to the herd.

 

 

Then back to mom's side.

 

 

 

We weren't in the park long, but it was long enough to walk in the badlands and over prairie, and to see and photograph lots of beautiful stuff. 

 

 

Black Hills sunset....

The kids and I climbed a hill in the Black Hills at sunset and they had some fun as the light disappeared.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was only a few minutes, but made for some cool pics.