Another failure post, I know, but this time it's not my fault. I swear.

I went to Abraham Lake to do some landscape photography on the weekend and I was so well prepared, you would be proud of me. The weather forecast looked good, the cloud tracker looked perfect (just the right amount of cloud cover)  I had lots of warm clothing to wear. I had emergency supplies packed in the truck. I even woke up on time so I wouldn't be rushed in the morning (2:45 am comes really early). It's a good thing too, as I stopped at an accident scene to offer my assistance, fortunately nobody was hurt and I was able to continue on my way.  Besides the highways being rather dicey due to the drifting snow, everything was going exactly as planned.

Then I turned a corner about 10km away from my destination, and was greeted by a wall of clouds, conveniently located where I wanted to be. Those clouds happened to be snowing.  Snowing really hard.  Snowing really hard all day.  That was not what the weather forecast and cloud tracker told me to expect. Instead of majestic sweeping landscapes full of happiness and rainbows that I had envisioned, I came home with a very bleak,  realistic depiction of Abraham Lake. 

That's in colour too by the way.  No mountains. No beautiful ice formations. No happiness. No rainbows, barely even a stitch of colour to be found save for those rare moments when I could see the lines on the highway. Now don't get me wrong, I do actually like the photo because of the texture and I'm a fan of minimalism, but as far as landscapes go - it's kind of a downer.  Especially after waking up early and enduring 800 kilometres of driving on crappy roads to capture something I could have captured at home by photographing a slightly crumpled blank piece of paper. (Note to self: see what  happens when you photograph slightly crumpled blank pieces of paper, I think I'm on to something here)

But if you remember, all these failure stories need to have a happy ending so I did have some success stories throughout the day, you know, making lemonade when life hands you lemons. Or, in this case, making photos when life hands you a stark white canvas that wears out your windshield wipers and tries to pull your truck into the ditch at every turn.

The first success being that for once I didn't get cold. Don't make fun - that's a big success. I'm a certified wimp and snowstorms are cold. I'll look back on this day fondly when I'm older and remember, "I wasn't cold that day" and then sigh happily and return to my daytime soap operas while sitting in my comfortable room temperature home.

The second success is entirely irrelevant to winter adventures and photography, but it's my blog and I'll tell you anyway. I ate three bananas. I don't know why I even thought I should bring bananas as my snacks for the day since I don't particularly like them, but I ate them and I didn't complain and they didn't kill me.  That should take care of my yearly fruit intake (ick), I'll stick to vegetables for the next 11 months. That should make Mom happy anyway. (Hi Mom)

Success number three was the wildlife sightings and managing to capture them without too much interferance from the gigantic snowflakes. Not an entirely easy task.   Deer, bighorn sheep and a total of six Grey Owls.  Before that, I could count on one hand the number of times I had seen an owl in the wild, I was apparently looking in the wrong direction my whole life.

So even though I did not really capture what I set out for, the day wasn't a total waste. Just another excuse to come back to visit soon, but I hope the weather cooperates next time.