The unusual weather conditions prompted me to venture out, with my camera, to capture images created by the winter’s warm day. First, I traveled to the Hannibal Dam to see if Thursday night’s rains had brought heavy thick ice down river, as I suspected. Sure enough, above the dam, the river’s surface was covered by a large ice jams. The ice extended up river for miles. That volume of ice combined with swift river currents, from the rains, caused the ice to press toward the dam, causing pressure ridges of thick ice to push upwards. In places, those ice ridges extended upward, nearly four feet above the muddy river’s surface. The unusually warm air, over the frozen river ice, created a blanket of thick fog that obscured the water from being viewed for most of Friday. Along the river south of town, some river barges waited until the conditions became more favorable before traveling in the unusual ice and foggy conditions. In my picture, the Veterans Bridge appears to be crossing over a blanket of spun cotton candy.

Next, I remembered another place that has seen such river conditions many times before. I traveled to Sistersville to see how the ferry was weathering the ice and fog. As I expected, the ferry was riding out the winter’s high water surrounded by ice, much as it has many times before. As I framed the picture, I noticed the sky behind the boat foretold of the coming Arctic cold front that was due to arrive later Friday night. The Sistersville Ferry is part of a long list of ferries that have crossed the river to Fly, Ohio. I remembered that for two hundred years the ferries operated in most all kinds of weather conditions. Only in recent history has the ferry closed operations in all but the warm summer months.

I enjoyed taking my camera out for the day, capturing images of the warm January day. The pictures I captured were unusual and interesting, at least for me. As much I as I enjoyed taking the pictures of ice and fog, what I really want to see is… spring flowers as I look Through the Lens.