Lives up to its name

I was out a the cottage in Nordegg on the weekend of December 5 and 6.  My daughter Hailey was out with me, but she had to return to the city of Sunday evening.  She had online schooling to do plus was scheduled to work a couple shifts at her job.  I stayed out at the cottage by myself for a couple of extra days.  For a stretch of a few days there, it was really warm, sunny and breezy.  For a few days it didn't even drop below zero overnight, and the day time high temperatures got up to as much as +10C.  Twice I took a drive up to Abraham Lake to take some photographs.  I stopped at the lakeside viewpoint, near Windy Point.  As is the case most of the time, the location lived up to its name.  The first day is was extremely windy and large format photography was impossible. I estimate that the winds were at least 60kmh... maybe more. The lake remains completely open, which is not really a surprise.  In recent years it has usually frozen over around the end of December.  Once that happens, the spectacle of the Ice Bubbles will be begin, and lots of photographers will be visiting. It is that ever present wind, that keeps the lake swept mostly free of snow, and makes the bubbles visible.  For now there are just large whitecaps on the open water of the lake.  When I returned the next day, it was not quite so windy, and I managed some photographs with my big camera.  But even then, I had to set up right beside my truck so that it could break the wind a bit and prevent the camera from being blown over.