Bit of a story, a missed opportunity, and a lesson learned today. So I was at the Jack Pine 30 this weekend (pics coming soon) and I wanted to get some shots of the teams exiting the woods. So I headed to the back of the home stretch and setup across from the exit to the woods. I wasn’t the only one that had this idea though.

Enter Nora, a very friendly woman who also had the same idea for pictures. She had one of those very sad, but also really inspirational stories. Her son had passed away a few years ago, lots of health issues, and she had been taking care of him. So after he passed she wanted to get out and experience life, and do all the things she couldn’t do as a full time caretaker. One of those things was checking out the sled dog races and the eben ice caves (which are amazing if you haven’t seen them).

She had missed the start of the race, and sadly the friends she was going to go with bailed on her, but she still made it out for the finish! Now I’m a fairly introverted person. Which, if you’ve met me, is an understatement. Small talk and me are two things that are not ever mentioned in the same sentence. But Nora was the polar opposite, which definitely had me off guard.

So after an hour or so of her being friendly, and sharing her story, and me doing my best impression of socially awkward penguin she heads back to her car.

Of course I didn’t give her a business card with my website info so she could see the pictures of the start of the race, and I didn’t take a portrait to go with this story or to send her as a keepsake of the event. Huge missed opportunity. But hey, it’s not like the internet is that massive, maybe she finds this site and drops a comment.