Yep - you heard THAT right!  

This weekend I gratefully accepted an invitation from a friend to stay at the lake at her cabin.  Now, this is no ordinary cabin - this is like "mega" cabin  - absolutely gorgeous - but that's beside the point.  The point is that even though she is not a photographer, she was gracious enough to come out with me to take a few shots.  They had just gotten a new Nikon 5000, so it was a chance for her to learn how to use it a little bit.  

We decided to head to the beach area and see what we could see.  Pretty much nothing........ I mean - it's just snow on a flat surface - not very interesting.  But, we decided we should go out on the dock and see what the view was like from there.  We had our snow shoes in the car, but decided "eh.......  how bad can it be?? - we've got out boots on .  That should do it!!"  Famous last words...

BOY WERE WE WRONG!!  The snow was literally up to our Yin Yangs!  This is not a word of a lie - we only had 2 or 300 yards to go and it took us about 40 minutes!  Yo see, the snow is really deep, and not only that, but it's also heavy and wet.  Think about the perfect snow for a snow ball fight.  Yeah..... not good for walking in.  We were literally sinking up to our crotches.  Trying to climb out when one leg is totally sunk is not an easy task.  And it was almost EVERY step.  At one point I was so exhausted and I just couldn't stand up at all, so I was crawling on my hands and knees trying to keep from breaking through the snow crust.  I was soaked and wet.  My mittens needed to be wrung out.  My poor friend was behind me - I'm sure it was quite a view for her, following behind me on my hands and knees!!  She probably had night mares that night!!  We laughed SO hard -but it was also a bit scary because I was literally wondering if we were going to make it.  I just wanted to lie down and die right there.  Freeze me up baby - they'll find my corpse in the spring when the snow finally melts.  Make sure my camera goes to one of my photo friends so they can edit and post my last photos...........  

So, finally we made it out and there in a big puddle on the side walk was a Crenelated Woodpecker.  I'd never seen one before - he was huge!  Black body and a bright red flare of feathers standing up on his head.  He was having him self a good old bath.  He was so beautiful!  I tried to get a few shots of him but he was a little too far away.  I snuck up a little, but still, no great shots.  bummer.  I put a shot of him in my scraps just so I could show off what a great photo op I missed!!!   


So then we hopped in the car and headed to our next location.  This time we decided to put our snow shoes on.  We were so full of pride at our great decision making this time around!!!  boy - did we have a rude awakening!!!  It was just as bad - but now we had snow shoes on - which can act like big shovels - You sink waaaay down, the heavy  snow covers them and then you have to lift them back up again.  NOT fun!  But we are not quitters - so we kept going for about a mile at least.  Once we got into the cover of the trees it wasn't quite so bad - but boy did we get a work out!  She was a real trooper to put up with me and my photo taking!  

We finally called it quits - went back to the cabin and dried off (thankfully I brought extra clothes just in case) and had a good meal, watched The Ugly Truth and 27 Dresses (holy chick flicks Batman!!) - it was like a Catherine Heigle marathon.  And we didn't even have to feel bad that we ate some junk - seeing as we worked it off already!    You've gotta LOVE that!!

All in all - it was a very good time. Not sure it was relaxing with all of that - but we did have fun.  I hope to spend about a week up in the park this summer.  Hopefully it will be a bit easier going - and I will get some good photo opportunities!

Enjoy the features my friends - there is beautiful and amazing art here to be seen!!

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