Last year I saw what seemed like dozens of Hemaris diffinis and H. thysbe moths around one of the butterfly bushes at Perennial Garden. This summer I’m seeing very few — mostly only one at a time. I’ve seen only one giant swallowtail, the first butterfly I noticed there on my way home from the farmers’ market. I haven’t seen one since.
At least I’m seeing monarchs, tiger and black swallowtails, red-spotted purples, several kinds of skipper, and a few hackberry emperors. I’m terrible at identifying trees, but several of the trees look like hackberry trees. The hackberry is to the hackberry emperor what milkweed is to the monarch — sole food for the caterpillar.
On August 11, a very pale hackberry emperor landed on my shirt and stayed until I had to start walking and gently shooed it off.
I say “pale” because hackberry emperors are usually darker.
Last week I was about to walk my bike through the grass from one bush to another when a hackberry emperor landed on my arm. It proceeded to probe about with its proboscis. It went at it for several minutes, even after I started walking again, arm raised in an awkward position. After a few moments it flew off.
Hackberry emperor butterfly puddling
Assuming it was sucking up sweat, I looked up the behavior, called “puddling.”
By sipping moisture from mud puddles, butterflies take in salts and minerals from the soil. This behavior is called puddling, and is mostly seen in male butterflies. That’s because males incorporate those extra salts and minerals into their sperm.
When butterflies mate, the nutrients are transferred to the female through the spermatophore. These extra salts and minerals improve the viability of the female’s eggs, increasing the couple’s chances of passing on their genes to another generation.
What could be more charming than knowing your sweat will help produce more hackberry emperors? I may not have children and grandchildren, but I will have butterflies!
J. wanted to go to northeastern Wisconsin to see family, so I went along. The trip didn’t begin well, as he was delayed by a protest and closed exits along the Dan Ryan. I should pay more attention to local news.
Traffic wasn’t bad the rest of the way, and the weather was perfect — clear sky, sunny, about 74ºF when we left and at Port Washington. I noted that I prefer a summer sky with interesting clouds, although later the cloudlessness would prove perfect for part of the plan.
We arrived in Port Washington (80ºF) at 3:40. I remember the time precisely because it was 20 minutes to closing at Bernie’s Fine Meats, where I promptly spent a small fortune. (I’m not a big meat eater, but, oh, the garlic summer sausage.)
Bernie’s Meats
We stopped for a bit at Smith Bros. Coffee for the namesake beverage and a sandwich. It’s one of those places where I could people watch all day.
Port Washington, WisconsinWisconsin’s Maritime Industries
Finally, we hit the road again, passing through Green Bay and continuing north.
I’m not sure when we arrived in Crivitz, perhaps around 7. We continued northwest toward the family tree farm. Along the way I noticed many stands of conifers planted in regular rows, but what struck me was how dark the interiors of these cultivated “woods” appeared. In places it seemed almost black between trees, across from the sun low in the sky.
Firewood makes s’more differenceWisconsin tree farm
After arriving at the tree farm and looking around, J. saw he’d gotten a message earlier that the family had gone to a fireworks show with “Boat Landing 3” as the destination. After heading out from the farm, we asked a man for directions (no mobile phone coverage in the area) and with his directions found Twin Bridges Park on Boat Landing 3 (a road). Earlier there’d been a waterski show and fireworks were also advertised. Now we just had to find the family. Someone in the huge parking lot pointed us toward a sandy path through the darkening woods to the spot for the main event. We found a crowd in a clearing, along with concessions stands.
Twin Bridges Park
J. sought his family while I waited in the line for the facilities. By then I was tired enough I couldn’t tolerate the crowd (or the smoking). I went back through the woods to the car, where I took several videos of the fireworks through the trees along the Peshtigo River while countless mosquitoes feasted on me.
Twin Bridges ParkFireworks at Twin Bridges Park
After a surprisingly good display, we headed toward an inn, 20 to 30 minutes away. The front serves as a bar and pool room (with one table) and the back as a restaurant. Everyone there seemed to be part of an extended family, friends, and neighbors group.
July 8, 2018
Next morning we passed Dirty Joe’s Laundry on the way to Java Lodge Coffee. Is there a Joe? Is he dirty? Does he launder? We may never know.
When we walked outside at midnight, the sky that had been so clear during the day had exploded with stars in a way that urbanites don’t experience without getting out of Dodge. Despite the lights around the building, there wasn’t much surrounding light pollution. We could the outline of part of the Milky Way. I wish I could see that every clear night. When I wasn’t soaking up the firmament (as the mosquitoes drained me), I was watching a few bats flying back and forth overhead (dealing with some of the little blood suckers, I hope). And so back to Crivitz for some rest.
I’d love to show the coffee shop, but the proprietor told us photos aren’t allowed due to the vendor works displayed. It had a north woods vibe, with bear and moose artwork and goods featured. Lovely place. We spent more time there than we could afford.
We returned to the tree farm, where we were given a tour of an addition, in progress, to the house, and I was offered a ride on a four wheeler (passed). My plan had been to head to Veteran’s Memorial Park afterward, but J’s brother talked him into a visit to Dave’s Falls, also a county park.
Nothing but a click happened when J turned his car key, and he realized he’d turned on the lights and left them on — don’t ask why as it was sunny and cloudless again, about 88ºF.
If you’re going to drain your battery, do it in the front yard of a family of mechanics. His brother appeared with a charger and clipped it on, then scraped and rinsed off years’ worth of corrosion. He advised running the engine for at least a half hour to 45 minutes — just about the amount of time it would take to get to Dave’s Falls.
Dave’s Falls, at least from what I could see from where I could get to, reminded me of a more open version of Parfrey’s Glen near Devil’s Lake, Wisconsin, where a small waterfall splashes into water suitable for horsing around. The river seemed to run pretty fast with some foam. I wish I had felt steady enough on my feet to get closer to the falls, but the ground was rougher and more angled than I could handle at that moment.
Dave’s Falls County ParkWhite admiral butterfly at Dave’s Falls County ParkDave’s Falls County Park
Too soon it was time to head south without looking back. We stopped at a Marinette County historical marker about Wisconsin forestry with a forest overlook. Next was a pullover at Half Way North marking the 45th parallel halfway between the equator and the North Pole. It seems this is marked in only a few places in Wisconsin, so I’m happy I landed at one of them.
Marinette County ForestsSmokey Bear thanks you for thinkingHalf Way North between equator and north pole
It was getting late in the afternoon by the time we reached Karvana south of Green Bay, one of J’s favorite coffee spots. The mac and cheese was pretty good, and the yam fries were amazing. Because I dislike the idea of bottled water and the massive amount one-use plastic it consumes, I loved their filtered water tap. I could fill my 32-ounce bottle with cold water before setting out again.
The final planned stop in the area was Fonferek’s Glen, a county park with a barn and other farm buildings. My objective, though, was the waterfall a short distance from the parking lot. When you first drive up, it looks like a serene meadow. Soon you notice, however, the many warning signs, especially once you pass the waterfall overlook.
Fonferek’s Glen
The trail, as they say, is not maintained. Hidden behind the buildings is a creek that you drove over that’s carved out steep cliffs with unstable edges. On this day, we didn’t see the waterfall — the creek bed was partially dry. So was the grass, we noticed later. We passed the overlook and walked on the unmaintained trail along the creek bed to the top of the waterfall. I’ve never done that before. Fenforek’s Glen is not far from the highway and is well worth the little detour.
Fonferek’s GlenFonferek’s GlenFonferek’s Glen
Time flies when you’re having fun. It looked like we’d run out of time to enjoy dinner at Twisted Willow in Port Washington. I had an idea — stop in, order dinner to go, and have a drink at the bar while waiting. I ended up with a great drink and enough Twisted Willow dinner for two meals. Another well-worth-the-detour moment. And getting back later than planned.
And so back to a routine work week under stars obscured at night by city lights.
The Hemaris moths are gone (presumed dead), and all that seemed to be left are the skippers and an occasional monarch. On Saturday, though, a hungry painted lady appeared. I spent an hour or more trying to take photos of this favorite of mine, but I’ve noticed they tend to turn their wide rumps toward me. I try not to take this personally, nor the apparent glare of the skipper that landed on my finger as I raised the phone.
At some point after the painted lady landed on an upper branch, I noticed it beating its wings furiously. I looked and could see only a bit of yellow-green against the purple flowers, but the painted lady seemed stuck. I broke the sprig off with the butterfly still attached. The poor thing went still, its poor legs curled up. I discovered the yellow-green thing had legs. I later decided it was a kind of well-named “ambush bug” — a tiny but formidable garden predator that doesn’t discriminate between pests and pollinators. Or a crab spider.1
This was one of the few times I’ve interfered with nature — something I’d normally not do and would not recommend. I can only plead that I was distraught over being deprived of my colorful little friend. I was reminded that the butterfly bush, so full of life in August, when dozens of moths, butterflies, and bees flitted about, can also be full of death. I have complicated feelings about the murder (anthropomorphism) of my new painted lady friend, but I won’t go into them here.
This painted lady appeared on Tuesday to console me (I’d taken the day off). In return, I tried to scout the remaining blossoms for lurking killers.
Now, on this last full day of summer, the one creature I saw, a painted lady, flew off when I approached and didn’t return. Another plant down the path that was crawling with a variety of bees only a couple of weeks ago is nearly motionless, with only a few stragglers lethargically tapping into its flowers. There wasn’t even the chatter of birds to relieve the loneliness of the garden past its seasonal prime.
And so summer ends and autumn begins.
1 I’ve seen crab spiders since at Perennial Garden, usually killing skipper butterflies, never Japanese beetles.
During the first half of August last year, I was thrilled to discover not only butterflies at Perennial Garden, but also the little fairy moths known as snowberry clearwings (Hemaris diffinis). I never expected to see anything like them here.
I found that great, Eastern tiger, and black swallowtails; red-spotted purples; painted ladies; silver-spotted and fiery skippers; bees; clearwings; and even a hummingbird or two love a particular butterfly bush at the garden. This bush, which had been cut down to the ground after last summer, didn’t bloom fully until early to mid-August — I started checking as early as May! On my brief visits, I never saw clearwings, so I braced myself for disappointment.
Fiery skipper butterflySkipper and Japanese beetleSilver-spotted skipper butterflyPainted lady butterflyMajestic monarch butterfliesRed-spotted purple butterflyEastern tiger swallowtail butterflyBlack swallowtail butterflyA bee on a different plant for good measureAdded Sept. 4: I first noticed this hackberry emperor butterfly on Labor Day
I started seeing a few clearwings a couple of weeks ago Thursday. When I pedaled over the Saturday before last at 3 p.m., the bush was swarming with life. I noticed that among the snowberry clearwings a few hummingbird clearwings, with their fuzzy green upper backs, were making an appearance. I was in heaven. I love these guys — even after I noticed they were buzzing one another and throwing each other off choice branches or blossoms.
By Saturday there were fewer of the snowberry clearwing moths under the increasingly cloudy skies. I was happy to have seen so many the day before.
I’d made one of the photos I’d taken the background image on my iPhone screen. I’ve changed phones since then, but I haven’t changed the image. I took a closer look at it — and realized that particular photo from last year is of a hummingbird moth (Hemaris thysbe). How did I never notice that? It had the species’ distinctive fuzzy green upper back and lacks the light band near the skirt. While bemoaning that I hadn’t seen any Hemaris thysbe at this butterfly bush, I’d been staring at a photo of one I’d taken a year ago. Brilliant.
Hemaris thysbe (hummingbird moth)
Last Tuesday I left work early for a doctor’s appointment and managed to get to the garden by 5 p.m. I was happy to have this unexpected opportunity to visit my little fairy moths — especially since they live only a few weeks.
The bush wasn’t buzzing like it’d been on Saturday, and there weren’t any large butterflies around—but there were enough moths for me to get a few photos and videos, including one in slow motion. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that sooner, except I am still trying to get a sharp closeup photo.
While I was standing watching a handful of moths flitting around, I heard a “bzzzzzzzzt” behind my head. I turned to find myself face to face with a hummingbird, separated by only a foot and a half or two feet of space.
As I was trying to get myself together (“Where’s the phone? Where’s the camera app?”), she buzzed around me to take a couple of quick sips at the bush. I have only these mid-distance shots and a memory now.
Now there’s only about an hour between the time I get home, change, get my bike out, and ride over, and sunset. By that hour, the Hemaris moths are few if any. The other day I was watching a hummingbird clearwing when a snowberry clearwing attacked it and carried it away.
I wish I could tell them there are plenty of blossoms to go around for the little time they have left.
The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring by Richard Preston. New York: Random House. 2007. 320 pages.
In The Wild Trees, Richard Preston delves into the lives of giant trees, primarily coast redwoods, and some of the people who seek and study them. The adventure starts well with three footloose college students, a beater car, and the open road before them. The first man disappears within pages of his introduction, and the second surfaces only sporadically later. The author starts to narrow his interest to the third, Steve Sillett, and then the college dropout son of a millionaire, Michael Taylor. After a four-year-old Canadian girl makes her appearance, her story begins to dominate the narrative.
When he isn’t elaborating on Sillett’s childhood with his grandmother; Taylor’s origins and the trouble with his father; and Marie Antoine’s entire childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood (whether the recounted experiences are relevant to the greater story or not), Preston weaves in interesting facts about the biology of giant trees and old-growth redwood forests, including what was and wasn’t known about them.
At some point, I recognized Preston’s style from The Hot Zone, another novel-like depiction of science. I wondered how he could make redwoods and other tree giants as gory as Ebola, but I soon found out when he describes what happens to a human body that has the misfortune to plummet from one of the world’s tallest trees. (Hint: During a fall, the body is weighted toward the head like an arrow.)
The strength of The Wild Trees is not only its emphasis on the age, size, and beauty of coast redwoods and other giants, but on the ecosystems that thrive within their trunks and branches. When a single redwood giant is cut down, an entire community of plants, fungi, and animals is lost, including amphibians that in theory shouldn’t be living hundreds of feet off the ground. There’s also a spiritual loss as well. Scientists like Sillett and Antoine and explorers like Taylor have more than a dispassionate interest in their subjects; they are spellbound by them, compelled to find them (Taylor) and climb and study them (Sillett and Antoine).
Preston loses his way in minute depictions of details. Human interest adds to any tale of science, but I would have preferred fewer intimate details about Michael Taylor’s every job and relationship issue (such as his career as a knife salesman) and Marie Antoine’s happy, then sad childhood and more about how the redwoods evolved, what has been discovered about them, the threats to them and how they’re being addressed, and the passion Sillett, Antoine, Taylor, and others have toward them. Sentences such as, “A helicopter from the Life Flight Network touched down on a nearby road, and the team carried Hillery to it, and he was loaded into the helicopter and it lifted off and flew toward Portland” distract from the horror and drama after a man falls 100 feet out of a tree.
Despite the depth of background, Preston never quite gets to the heart of Sillett’s personality and character, rendering him as uninteresting as a man who climbs trees hundreds of feet tall can be.
Preston knows how to choose a good story, even if he does need an editor to keep him focused on what’s compelling. The Wild Trees is educational and informative, and if you’re like me you’ll want to learn more about coast redwoods and other giants while we still have them.
I’d have spent more time on this photo if I’d known how it would turn out. I like the vignetted background visible through the tree’s crotch leading to the moss cascade.
While this snowberry clearwing was intent on seeking nectar, I was intent on photographing it. I couldn’t get crisp photos with an iPhone, but this is one of my favorites. It looks like it’s playing hide-and-seek with me, but I have no idea of how this little hovering moth perceives the world. Maybe I was just an annoying anomaly of movement, shadow, or strange colors. To me, they are like garden fairies. I haven’t seen one in a couple of weeks, and I miss them. So long to summer, and hope to see your progeny next year.
Lately I’ve been lurking at Perennial Garden in Hyde Park, a favorite spot of mine. Right off where the pavement turns in I found a bush where butterflies hang out. I’ve learned it’s called “butterfly bush.” It’s an invasive species, so I don’t recommend it for your garden. (Try something native, like butterfly weed.)
Some days the bush is visited by butterflies. At other times I see more little moths. One day to my surprise a hummingbird whizzed in and out. I’m not sure it even stopped. It (or another) did the same thing the next day, never when I was ready for a photo.
After the hummingbird sightings, I started thinking that my life would be complete if a hawk, or hummingbird, moth showed up. I’d seen only one once before, near the Cascades in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was a fancy, not even a hope. The next day my jaw dropped when one of these little garden fairies buzzed in. Now I wish I hadn’t waited until August to start my lurking.
My life is complete. Until I figure out how to get better photos or get my camera over there. By then it will be September.
Champaign to Anna to Giant City State Park to Heron Pond to Fern Clyffe State Park, then home
May 23, 2014, late evening
J. and I set out for a brief return to Shawnee National Forest and the Cache River. Other than visiting Heron Pond, I didn’t have a plan.
We made it to Champaign before stopping. I forgot that Champaign is a few miles east of I57, so we overshot it.
After breakfast at Le Peep, we were on the road again. We had to bypass some of last year’s distractions, like Amish Arcola and Rend Lake. We did leave the expressway for Mattoon and a quick stop at a place I hate to leave: Common Grounds. Closer to our destination, in Mount Vernon we detoured to a Toyota dealer and a car parts store to look at the malfunctioning lower glove compartment. We also took a break at the Post Oak rest area, which with its bridge and trees is scenic and soothing. I remembered it from last year.
Post Oak rest stop
This time we focused on the more civilized western part of Shawnee, with home base at the Davie School Inn. Built in 1910, this elementary school is now a distinctive and very comfortable bed and breakfast — if the sight of a student desk and other holdovers from the school don’t traumatize you with memories.
Davie School Inn
Our host described Anna, which we’d been to before, as “just like Mayberry” (that is, there’s no need to freak out if you leave your car unlocked for a few minutes — or more).
Giant City State Park
May 24, 2014
I’d been intrigued by the name and description of Giant City State Park. As it was already late afternoon, it was nearby, and our host recommended the park’s lodge for dinner, it seemed like a great place to use the daylight we had left. On the way, we stopped in Makanda at what in any other place would be called a strip mall, only this was a rustic building carved into a hillside, and its stores were mostly local art and other tourist shops, with an ice cream joint in the middle. I loved its charming hillside location and unpolished design. You realize how sterile urban and suburban big box and brand shopping is when you see something like this.
Makanda, Illinois
We inadvertently took a hilly, twisty back way into Giant City State Park. These aren’t words I usually associate with the flat, bland Illinois landscape, so it’s like being in another world.
Giant City State Park has numerous trails, and I tried to find the one that was popular and not too difficult. (There may be a correlation.) After wandering around a while, we came upon the Giant City Nature Trail head, past a picnic area overrun with happy, screaming children.
This didn’t sound like something I couldn’t handle (although I wouldn’t be sure until the end). We were lucky because we weren’t swarmed by mosquitoes.
The “giants” of Giant City are huge rocks with “streets” between them, the natural antonym of a model scale urban canyon.
By far the most popular trail at Giant City, this 1 mile trail is home to the famous “streets” of Giant City. You’ll walk on a mulched trail with wooden walkways at difficult spots. There are some strenuous uphill portions on this trail. Take this trail to view a diversity of plant habitats from creek bottomland to dry blufftop. This is also a promising trail for seeing the largest woodpecker in the United States, the pileated woodpecker.
Illinois Department of Natural Resources
The giants are beautiful and impressive, and we would have stayed longer if we weren’t running out of daylight for photos and time to get to the lodge for dinner before it closed. After we passed the Giant City “streets,” I was even nervous that we wouldn’t be back to the trail head by dark — I wasn’t prepared with this convenient and easy-to-follow map.
I moved as quickly as I could over the more strenuous uphill portions and somewhat rougher terrain. Earlier we’d seen a woman who was in the final stages of pregnancy, and I’d marveled at first that she was going to attempt the trail, but then her family detoured back to the parking lot, so they saw only the sandstone bluffs.
When we got back to the trail head, I noticed the sign said Fat Man Squeeze was closed due to snake activity. I realized later we hadn’t inadvertently disrupted the snakes. Even if we had spotted Fat Man’s Squeeze (we weren’t sure), from the looks of the photos it would have been a miracle if I could have gotten even my arm through. For a lot of reasons (mainly the distance between us), the snakes will remain safe from me.
Like Starved Rock Lodge, Giant City Lodge was a CCC project and has a similar rustic, roughly timbered feel (although the construction style may be different — I’m no expert). It’s decorated with specimens of various taxa that have been treated by a taxidermist — deer, fish, ducks, etc. Food and drink were welcome after the long, tiring day, and so was the classroom with the Jacuzzi shower and bath at Davie School Inn.
Heron Pond
May 25, 2014
After a big breakfast, we set out for the Barkhausen-Cache River Wetlands Center to get better directions than I had for Heron Pond, although on the way we spotted a few signs pointing to the pond. I’m glad we stopped at the center not only because having directions helped us to find it (what you’re supposed to pass through, how far to go) but also because for a little while we could watch the barn swallows and hummingbirds forage.
I’m not sure where we went wrong last year (I think we just gave up), but although Heron Pond is a little out of the way, with the signs and the directions it’s not hard to find. The final approach, however, is down a narrow, single-lane gravel road whose shoulders have been cut away so there’s a good drop on either side with not much room for error. We were in luck; we had just started down it when a car came toward us, so we didn’t have far to back up to get to a point where we could let them pass. I wonder if the road is being made wider, but I can’t say.
The road is long enough to make you wonder if you somehow missed the pond but eventually you do come to a crude parking area, and the trail head is clearly marked. The trail itself is easy, and we stopped to take photos at several spots that didn’t make me think of what I was looking for, but were scenic on their own. The sign at the trail head was a good clue, as was the bridge we crossed soon after starting out — I’d seen it in a video of Heron Pond.
Although we didn’t see wildlife galore, we did occasionally see movement, which in one case gave away the location of a lovely leopard frog. I’m assuming he’s of the southern variety.
While the first part of the trail is more open and the water looks like a conventional creek (or “crick”), soon we started seeing swampy areas to the left, with denser vegetation. By this time, though, the fatigue from the up-and-down Giant City trail was hitting me hard. The experience helped me understand the descriptions given by people with disease-related fatigue. My legs felt like heavy dead weights that were getting harder and harder to move, even when walking on level, even surfaces. As at Lusk Creek Canyon the year before, I told J. I couldn’t go any farther if I were to be able to make it back to the car. Also as at Lusk Creek Canyon, when we hit a signpost (in this case a fork), he left me so he could see how far off the destination was. It turns out that Heron Pond wasn’t much farther, although that is relative when you’re fatigued and hurt all over. I plodded along until we finally reached the Heron Pond boardwalk, where adorable anoles were one sign that we weren’t in northern Illinois anymore.
As one woman passed us, she asked if we’d seen the cottonmouth (copperhead?) under a tree we’d passed. No! I’m disappointed we missed it — I’d been hoping to see a snake, although last year we’d been told they’re elusive.
Years ago, I’d read Marjorie Zapf’s Mystery of the Great Swamp, set in the Okefenokee of 50 to 60 years ago. n the hot, humid air that would be more typical of summer than spring in northern Illinois, Heron Pond looks like something you might find in Georgia — a tiny, northern, less wild Okefenokee. In the book, though, you see the world from Jeb’s eyes as he poles a canoe through trees covered with Spanish moss. When I read The Mystery of the Great Swamp as a child, all of it — the swamp, the canoe, the venomous snakes dangling from the trees, the birds, the dappled lighting and the deep shadows, the profound stillness and subtle sounds as the animals carried on with life — all of this was deliciously alien to my imaginative child-self. I was young enough to think I was Jeb, poling through the silent but not still Okefenokee, in search of answers to questions no adult understood or admitted. I didn’t love the ending because it wasn’t an ending for just Jeb or just me; it felt like an end to something bigger and critical to life itself — the unknown. Without mystery in life, what’s left?
Heron Pond isn’t large or remote enough to harbor the Great Swamp’s mystery — nor, of course, is the Great Swamp. It’s lovely, peaceful, and otherworldly, though, especially after the hours spent passing through central Illinois, if you can imagine the other tourists and, in my case, the pain and fatigue away.
Despite the humid heat and the sun, we stayed a while , then J. wanted to head toward the state champion cherrybark oak. So did I. By this time, my legs felt like they weighed one hundred pounds each, and every step was a painful effort — so painful that I broke into tears and became and even more miserable travel companion. At least I got a lovely photo of the champion cherrybark oak and for a moment I was Jeb — in a 52-year-old woman’s body, chronic condition and all.
Before we passed the Wetlands Center on the way back, we picked up a high-profile, slow-moving farm vehicle in front of us. As he headed toward a large turtle parked in the middle of the lane, I cringed, expecting to see the big guy flattened. The farm vehicle, however, passed over it, so high off the ground on its giant wheels that the turtle was in no danger as long as it stayed in the middle. After the vehicle passed, the turtle, which had been hunkered down, stood as high on its legs at it could and began to hightail it across the road. I’ve never seen such long legs on a turtle. Later my hair stylist pointed out what should have been obvious to me — the turtle was trying to keep its body as far from the hot pavement as it could. I hope it made it to a nice cool spot nearby. As for the vehicle, after a convenience store stop, where we had lost it, it found us again, but finally it pulled off the road at a farmhouse a mile or two away.
Further along the road what I could swear was an otter crossed in front of us. It had the low profile and short legs of an otter and walked very differently from the only beaver I’ve seen walking (in Kankakee River State Park).
The plan had been to squeeze in another activity as it was not much past 4, and there would be daylight for a while. I didn’t have much left, however. After a rest, we went to El Jalapeño in Anna for dinner. By this time, beautiful clouds had built up, and thunder rumbled in the air, but not much came of the threat except the opportunity to relax all the sore muscles and stiff joints.
Fern Clyffe State Park
May 26, 2014
Monday (Memorial Day) came, and it was already time to return — after another hearty breakfast, of course. Before we left the Jonesboro area, we stopped at Hidden Lake Bed and Breakfast and learned that they had indeed sold the property in two parcels — the main building as a private home, and the guest house as an inn — and that they were getting to move within a month or two. I’m glad I was able to enjoy the amazing breakfast room overlooking the array of bird feeders and a brief walk around the hidden lake last year.
Because time was short, we made only a quick visit to Fern Clyffe State Park, seeing a dead coyote along the way. At Fern Clyffe, the waterfall that had not been running on my previous visit in late May 2013 was not running. One of visitors, who lives nearby, helpfully informed us that after a good rain it had been running the past weekend. Curses.
The rest of the drive back was uneventful. We stopped in Roger Ebert’s university town, Champaign, for a second Memorial Day visit to Café Kopi, another comfortable place that’s hard to leave. By the time we pulled over at the Main Line Station rest area, storm clouds had developed around us, just like last year at the same place. This was the third beautiful trip that ended in rainy or stormy weather — almost as if the weather were trying to brace us for the return to work and reality, to bring us back from the mystery of the great swamp to the banality of everyday life.
With the recent rain, J. thought Saturday, April 20 would be a good day to visit Starved Rock State Park — we might have a chance to see waterfalls powered by spring rains.
It sounded like a good idea. I’d been working from home during the rain, and when I looked out there seemed to be only the typical puddles — the kind you expect to see after a little rain. I’d seen flood warnings and heard about some flooded basements, but I had no concept of how much rain there had been or how bad the flooding was. This journey would open my eyes.
We met at Starbucks in Homewood (RIP, Caribou Coffee) and set out, making a few stops along the way — the surprisingly lovely Three Rivers rest stop on I80, where one of the vending machines sometimes includes Milk Bones for the well-traveled pooch, and Ottawa, Illinois.
Our planned stop in Ottawa was Foothills Organics, which was moved recently from a house in Utica. On the way there, we noticed a pretzel shop. After stocking up on organic fruits, berries, vegetables, grains, and assorted goodies, we tried amazing pretzel-wrapped hot dogs — but not before checking out a happy cat lying in the window of the neighborhood law office. Who wouldn’t love a town where lawyers have set up a window seat, house, and toys for the resident cat in their office and where you can get hot dogs wrapped in buttery pretzels?
Not a legal beagleDidoughs in Ottawa, Illinois (no more)
Next stop — Utica, the gateway to Starved Rock State Park. After passing through Utica, you cross the Illinois River via a box girder bridge.
We didn’t make it through Utica, however. At the Willows Hotel, the town had turned into a lake, with an emergency boat and vehicles parked at its edge. Shop signs and lawn ornaments were half submerged, and at our feet a hose ran from the basement of a nearby house, spewing water back into the flood. I read later that flood stage is 21 feet and that the water had topped out at 33 feet. I’d never seen a flooded town before except in photos, and I was stunned by how far into town the river had encroached. Never could I have imagined it traveling that far.
Flooded Utica, Illinois
Going through Utica was out without a boat, so we turned toward Oglesby, where we could cross the bridge.
On arrival at Starved Rock Lodge, we saw that the road to the Visitor Center was closed, which is not surprising as the center is downhill from the Lodge and is separated from the water by a grassy picnic area. Update: Later I saw a photo of the Visitor Center partially submerged.
The Lodge’s front desk people told us that part of Matthiessen State Park was open, so we went there, walking down the many, many, steps that lead to an area above the water. Because the footbridge was muddy and ankle deep in water in places, I steered us to the left down an easy and mostly dry trail. Along the way, we heard a great horned owl calling, the traditional, “Who, who, who cooks for you?” I’ve heard them in the area before, but they remain elusive to the eyes. This one sounded distant.
We reached a point where you could cross the water to get to the rest of the trail, but I was out of steam, so I sat gingerly on the front edge of a bench tilted rakishly back while J. went on. While he was gone, a a young couple came from that direction. I told them they were headed toward the stairs and parking lot. “Oh, good; we are really lost,” the woman said. They must have been circling back without realizing it.
J. soon came back just as a middle-aged couple came along from the direction of the parking lot. A fallen tree lay above and across the stream, and the man decided it was meant to be a bridge. He wasn’t too sure of himself, though, and stopped halfway across. His wife didn’t seem too pleased. If the tree had become dislodged from the loose, sandy soil, he would have fallen onto a bed of rocks below, joined by a crashing tree trunk. I did’t want to see it, so I left just as J. took photos of the man posturing and of the couple.
More adventurous than IMatthiessen State Park
It was a glorious spring day in a glorious place, just what I needed to stave off growing stress and unease.
