How often do we start out to do one thing and end up with something else?  And how often do we overlook what’s right in front of us?   We headed out  a bit before sunrise this morning for Wild River State Park.  This is a large Minnesota state park located on the St. Croix River.  My intent was to photograph the wildflowers that bloom in the restored prairie in the park.  As we’re driving along the edge of the prairie, my eyes were seeing some unusual white “flowers” — they seemed to have a tuft at the top.  They certainly didn’t appear to be anything I recognized, but I was intrigued enough to stop and look further.  Upon closer examination I realized that these weren’t flowers at all.   The early morning dew was undisturbed by wind and sun, and it was decorating the cobwebs that had been woven between the dried flower heads and stems.  And once I looked through the camera lens further, these intricate dew drops almost appeared to have been “strung” along the web, with a small eyelet on each one.  As I photographed I was thinking of how grateful I was to have been curious enough to stop the car and look closely at what I was seeing from a distance.  How much easier it would have been to have said “no wildflowers here” and continued down the road.  How sad it would have been to  miss the wonder and beauty that was there for that small window of time before the wind blew and the sun dried the dew.