Last week, I headed just over the Michigan border to photograph a beach I visited 4 years ago in New Buffalo. But it's been so cold that the place doesn't look like a beach at all. It's a frozen world.

I made a big mistake leaving the tripod in the car, I thought I could always go back and grab it - but the "hike" to the beach turned out to be much longer than I anticipated.

Everything was slippery, and the wind chills were kind of brutal. I wasn't sure where the beach ended and where the lake began (I was checking the satellite layer in Google Maps to make sure I wasn't going beyond the shore).

I wish I had the tripod with me to take some long exposures.

I loved this trip so much (I've already written about it), I love how some photos turned out, and I'll be heading back there pretty soon, before it gets warm and the frozen world fades away.

See more photos of Lake Michigan and Indiana.