Lake Darling

Yesterday, we traveled twelve miles north of where we live to a little lake named Lake Darling. It was a cool 19 degrees, lightly snowing, and very windy. We pulled off onto the first boat ramp, but there were several trucks parked. When we pulled in a little further, we noticed some shacks where people were doing some ice fishing. We were trying to find a somewhat secluded area as our dog does not like strangers, so we continued around the lake. The next boat ramp area was empty. We parked our vehicle and got out to explore. We let our dog off his leash and let him run around. He was so excited he was running and sliding all over the ice! I wish I had captured one of his falls. As my dog and my husband played on the ice, I sat down and took hundreds of photos and played around with different settings on my camera. Here are a couple of my favorites..

The second one was pretty blurry, but I decided to go with it and give it an old time feel. After 20 minutes or so, my fingers were red and feeling pretty frozen. We decided to move on to a different area. I defrosted my hands in the car while we drove around. Next we found a small hill that overlooked the lake. Again, our dog was so excited he was running around in circles. My favorite pictures came from this spot.

If you look closely in the second photo, you can barely see our dog's tail! I also love that the lake in these pictures looks textured from the dusting of snow sitting on top of the frozen water. The final area we checked out was a refuge area. We walked a short hiking trail before heading out, and I got a couple pictures that I liked from there.

Even though I was freezing, my fingers and toes were hurting, and there was snow blowing onto my face, I had a really great time! My dog and husband were such great models, and I'm so happy they agreed to come with me. I could hardly wait to get home to edit some pictures.

Here is one last photo from our ride home.. Taken with my camera phone. All others were taken with my Nikon P500.