Six months ago I reserved a campsite on the shores of Lake Huron during a new moon cycle, intent on doing some Milky Way photography. Many years ago Katie and I camped at this state park and I remembered a lighthouse located just a few miles north that might work for night photography.

My sister drove all the way up from Alabama just to go with me on this photography adventure. Last Monday we set out early in the day so that we had time to scout out the lighthouse location for potential night shots.

You see, the weather didn’t look promising beyond Monday night. That’s what happens when you have to book something months out. Weather is always the unknown element. We expected a clear night Monday, but rain and cold Tuesday and Wednesday.

We discussed going back home Tuesday if it was miserable.

And we knew we’d only have one night to get the Milky Way. So we needed to be ready.

The lighthouse was just as I remembered it, standing tall on the shores of the Great Lake. We wandered the beach looking for something interesting to put in the foreground.

Eventually we decided we needed to be quite a bit behind the lighthouse in order to be shooting Southeast where the Milky Way would be. We found a place that might work, tucked low behind a small dune, and made a big X in the sand so we could find the spot in the darkness of 2 a.m., our planned shoot time.

Then we explored other places on the site, including Baily School which wasn’t open, but we got an interesting shot through the window anyway.

We wandered down the beach to the south, thinking maybe the rocks out in the water might be interesting. Even if we didn’t end up shooting there at night, they made a nice, minimal, image in the sunshine we were enjoying.

Eventually it was time to go check into the campground. If all three days were as nice as Monday we’d have a wonderful time. If only.

Maybe the weather forecasts were wrong.

We did note that of the handful of people camping along the shore we were the only ones in tents. Perhaps we were a touch too early in the camping season.

Not to worry, we each had electric blankets and we were confident that we’d be fine. This was not our first spring camping experience.

So…you might ask…what happened on Monday night? Did we leave our nice warm, snuggly beds to drive up to the lighthouse at 2 in the morning? Or did the waves lapping on the shore lull us back to sleep after our alarms rang?

I guess you’ll have to wait and see.