Ice

I've demonstrated time and again that I have very little creativity when it comes to blogging...or maybe just taking pictures. I am currently in Ithaca for a long holiday visit with Rob (it will actually end up being the longest we've been in the same place together since high school) and STILL the only thing I am thinking of posting is the last sunrise picture I took of Lake Michigan as I was loading my car for the long drive to NY on Thursday. Sorry for the current lack of creativity, but it really was an incredible sunrise. At certain times of the day the lake water takes on this amazing sheen that makes it appear as a thick liquid mirror--the waves moving ashore slowly enough to avoid creating foamy white caps and lapping against the sand like thick iridescent oil...


If you look closely at the distant yellow-pink glow of the barely-hidden sun, you might notice that its image is split--a portion of it reflecting over a mirage-like mirror hovering above the lake's true surface.

Though I am thrilled to be in Ithaca for the holidays, if there's one thing I'll be pining for back in Evanston, it's the chance to observe the slow day-to-day changes in Lake Michigan as winter transforms it into a partially frozen over arctic seascape. When I visited NU in early February for my audition, the lake was a patchwork of deep blue water framed by large white ice fields and floating mini-bergs. Now I wonder what happens in between--does a fresh body of water behave as the ocean does and go through a "pancake-ice" stage?

(I didn't take the photo below)

Or does it just slowly and uniformly freeze from the shoreline out like a lazy woodland pond?

(I didn't take this photo either)

I guess for now this will remain a mystery.

In the meantime, you can rest assured that you won't have to sit through yet another amorous posting about Lake Michigan...for a little while anyway:)