I took the day off today to accompany my little fellas on a field trip and then to teach a quick introductory karate lesson to the group of kids. Getting up early, I realized there was a lot of fog and just enough time available to bolt out east of Bismarck and look for something frosty. Bonus.

Barbed wire is always a safe bet if there is frost about. Not only is it a good candidate for frost to form, but it’s also quite photogenic in the first place. A while back, when I bought and outfitted my new camera, I had to sell my beloved macro lens in order to afford some accessories (I’m still smarting from that). Even so, I have a couple of lenses in my kit that do a remarkable job of interesting closeups when the situation requires.

These photos are from a while back when a friend and I ventured out on the ice at Lake Audubon. As you can see, the ice was very thick at the time…nearly three feet in places! The slab pressed upward by the pressure ridge in the photo above is around twelve feet tall. Ice that thick is easily capable of supporting a vehicle or ice house. What about the lake today?

This sort of ice hasn’t had the time or the cold to form yet, but I’m told there are plenty of guys heading out onto the ice with their big pickup trucks and fishing gear. A friend of mine drilled a test hole this weekend and found the ice to be twelve inches thick…essentially the bare minimum for that sort of thing. Then we had 50+ degree weather yesterday, which couldn’t have helped things much.

I wonder how long it’ll take for the ice to thicken, and whether or not someone’s going to “take the plunge” before that happens? As for me, I think I’ll stay on terra firmer for a while until the ice sheet gets a little more fortified.

This little cluster of nonconformists stands out now, but leaves are starting to change color all over the place. Fall’s right around the corner, and photographers like myself try to make the best of it. Last year the leaves didn’t bother with color; they simply fell off the trees, and the snow fell. Let’s hope we get to at least enjoy a typical autumn this year!

After breakfast with some friends last Saturday morning, I ventured south toward the river bottoms to see what sort of photographic opportunities were presented by the morning fog. It was still during the 6 o’clock hour when we wrapped up breakfast, so I was able to get ahead of the sun and sky a little bit. I stopped by this bridge near the entrance to Fort Lincoln and decided perhaps a refreshing morning hike up to the blockhouses would be a perfect way to enjoy the morning.

At first, I expected the blockhouses to be above the fog, since their elevation is so high above the river level. I was wrong…when I got up to the top of the hill, I saw that they were socked in with a thick blanket of fog too. In fact, when I was taking this shot I could see the airborne droplets dashing past my face between my camera and me. It was strange but intriguing, something I hadn’t witnessed since my days of living and working at very high elevation in Montana.

The sun was working on punching its way through the fog, but thankfully I had a pretty good window of opportunity before the morning blanket started to burn off with the rising sun’s rays.

As you can see, from the top of the blockhouse there wasn’t a whole lot of visibility at first.

Slowly the fog up at my level began to dissipate, leaving a thick covering over the river valley below. The sky above was perfect, a beautiful blue and crisp with the morning.

For a brief while I had a little companionship. I have an agreement with the birds; it’s not complicated, but it’s hard to explain. He didn’t care for the idea of me putting on a larger lens to get an extreme close-up. I guess that was the last straw. He left as suddenly as he dropped in.

The sun climbed steadily higher, and with that it dissipated more and more of the thick fog below. As the fog began to recede, the flooding of the Bismarck-Mandan area began to reveal itself.

Soon the view of airborne water was replaced with the view of ominously expanding riverbed water as the Missouri continued to rise and reach out further and further from its normal channel. Vantage points like this are important because they can give a good frame of reference as far as the amount of water we’re dealing with right now.

The fog was suddenly just…gone. The thick covering was replaced by amazing blue skies and a warm, friendly sun. This allowed me to take some photos and video of the blockhouses with brilliant green grass and stunning blue skies. I did plenty of that and then pointed the truck for home.

As much as I like to sleep in, as a photographer I appreciate the morning. You can’t duplicate morning light.if I hadn’t gotten up early, I’d never have seen any of this. As luck would have it, I was able to play with my cameras quite a bit before the clouds rolled in. That’s how I like it.

One complication we’ve been spared in the flood fight is severe weather. That could hinder efforts dramatically. While areas upstream of us have seen massive rain events and other severe weather, we’ve been blessed in dodging that bullet. A cooler June has kept things settled down for now, and let’s pray it stays that way!

I saw these clouds developing while out at Fort Lincoln a couple of evenings ago, and thankfully the developing storms passed us by.