Day Two:

The night was shorter than usual.  That may have been because I stayed up late but woke up at my normal time which is o’dark-thirty.  I took a quick peek outside to see what the weather was like and was pleased to see the skies had cleared off overnight and it was a gorgeous spring morning with wisps of fog wrapping itself around the pine trees and creek bottoms.  I took a quick shower, grabbed my cameras and tripod, scrounged up a cup of coffee and after asking a few questions about where I might find some hiking trails, headed out the back door of the main lodge to shoot the morning mists:

Trevon and I crossed tracks near the lodge and he was after the same thing…the misty shots.  He was headed to Salmon Lake nearby in hopes he could get some good shots of it before it lifted.  The mist seemed to be all around us, however by the time we got to the lake it was, for the most part, gone.  Still it was worth shooting a few frames…

Feeling ‘skunked’, we started to return to the resort.  I am somewhat familiar with the area because we have had family reunions in the area for nearly twenty years and I noticed a fogbank to the west of the highway toward Placid Lake, another local body of water extremely popular with residents of Missoula.  The lake is overcrowded / overbuilt, in my opinion, with summer and fulltime residences lining the lake and small, old cabins are surrounded by 5 and 6,000 square foot ‘cottages’.  When Trevon and I arrived we were indeed greeted by the misty landscapes.

At the end of the road we parked and walked through the trees…

to find the lakeshore and old friends waiting for summer’s arrival:

The road out was still in the swirl of fog and lined with vibrantly colored Lupine:

At the bridge where we first stopped to shoot, the mists had receded from the lake but it still left us with incredible views of God’s artistry in nature:

The remainder of our day was not quite as exciting, but still very educational.  Travis continued to explain the necessity of having a business plan to succeed.  Without one it’s nothing more than starting on a journey not knowing where you are going.  At the end of his presentation he had a slideshow of his photos and in these pictures were people who were no longer alive.  Travis kept speaking and I wondered how he could go on as I was choking back tears.  He showed a series of portraits he’d taken of a man and woman…middle aged and they were sitting on a charcoal grey backdrop; the woman was leaning into her husband who was seated behind her.  Several weeks later the husband died in a plane crash.  Travis’ point was this…what we do is so important…never think of it as just a job.  This woman had these pictures to hold close… to remember her loving husband…tangible evidence of their lives and love together.