Earlier this year as a birthday present to both of us my parents-in-law very kindly sent us to Minnesota to visit Elizabeth’s oldest friend near Fariboult (outside Minneapolis-St. Pauls), where she lives with her husband and son and a small menagerie.
Our friends were immensely generous too with their planning and time they spent with us, touring us around MN in the middle of their busy lives. This included my first visit to such a flat landscape which was an experience in and of itself; our first time ice fishing in this land of 10,000 lakes; our first ice hockey game with the Minnesota Wilds; and our first time polar plunging. For some reason our friend thought that because a polar plunge was on her bucket list this also meant it was on ours….(!?) She conveniently got a cold on the day of the polar plunge so regretfully excused herself from jumping into an icy hole.
In the run up to our trip we were taunted by weather forecasts of the usual Minnesotan blizzards and -20C/-4F temperatures (weather updates that were a little too gleefully shared by these ‘friends’). The day we arrived however, the temperature was unusually warm for February: 30C/50F higher than the norm. This continued for our entire visit, much to our friends’ disappointment, knowing how averse we are to the cold despite (because of?) Elizabeth growing up near the Canadian border.
Thank you to our friends for everything including the many adventures not listed here and all the delicious home cooked meals. We cannot wait to see them all again and play more with their extremely cute and smiley toddler. And thank you again to Elizabeth’s parents!
To view the photographs, please click here or visit the Galleries page at https://www.travellingfortea.com/photography
Enjoy,
Vientiene
P.S. For any photography enthusiasts or professionals reading: I use a Panasonic G5 (micro four-thirds), and mostly used a 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens from 2013-2017 (full frame equivalent 28-84mm). In early 2017, I replaced it with the much faster 20mm f1.7 II prime allowing the capture of much more light, as well as an increase in saturation, a reduction in size and a significant boost in sharpness. This is the full-frame equivalent to a 40mm f1.7 so is a 'normal' lens in the traditional sense. I also use a telescopic 45-200mm f4-5.6, it has great reach given the full-frame equivalent of 90-400mm, but at f5.6 at full extension is quite slow.