Letchworth State Park waterfalls at half speed
Same video at half speed. More relaxing.
Tag Archives: state park
Belt of Venus, Wisconsin style
This is another Belt of Venus, this time taken in Wisconsin on Lake Michigan, November 28, 2015. Different from this one and this other one in Chicago.
Letchworth State Park waterfalls
My dad, persistently frustrated by cheap cameras, would be amazed by what you can do with something that fits into your pocket. He would be more amazed and likely appalled by how much such a thing costs. I know he’d envy my photos and videos of Letchworth, though. From late May 2015.
Turkey Run State Park (and Shades)
April 19–21, 2016
Four years later, I realized I never wrote about a quick spring visit to Turkey Run State Park in Indiana. Luckily for anyone who finds this, I don’t remember much detail.
What I do remember:
- There were warning signs everywhere about “drownings have occurred.” Sure, but that wouldn’t happen to me, am I right? The first sign was on the sandy bank of a tranquil stretch of river. I was not fooled.
- Parts of Turkey Run State Park look like Starved Rock State Park, but instead of St. Peter sandstone, it’s Mansfield sandstone.
- Not far from the Lieber Cabin, I found many amazing rock formations, including some that tilted, some that were glassy smooth, and some that glowed under the overcast sky (not that kind of glow). I don’t get out much and had never seen anything like them.
- In this same area, we heard barred owls calling (“Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?”) The folks at the Nature Center seemed happy to hear this.
- We found out there’s a Turkey Run Inn. We may have eaten there. I can’t remember, but there’s evidence I raided the gift shop.
- I think someone mentioned there are several covered bridges in the area, so we visited as many as we could. Most are walk-through only. Billie Creek Bridge is the only one we drove across.
- Rocky Hollow–Falls Canyon Nature Preserve “contains deep sandstone canyons.” I wish there’d been time and energy to go farther (I always say that). This area most resembled Starved Rock.
- Rocky Hollow–Falls Canyon features Wedge Rock, which looks like a tilted flatiron. Glacial erratic? I wouldn’t want to stand under it for long.
Toward the end of the second day, we made a quick stop at Shades State Park but didn’t see much. Then we headed back down sunny country roads as the weather soon turned threatening.
Some but not all of the stops according to the Swarm app:
April 19
- Potbelly, Hyde Park
- Wolcott Rest Area Southbound, Wolcott, IN
- Kankakee Rest Area Southbound, DeMotte, IN
April 20
- Raccoon Lake
- Benjamin’s II, Rockville, IN
- Jailhouse Cafe, Rockville, IN
- Turkey Run State Park Inn, Marshall, IN
- Narrows Restaurant, Kingman, IN
April 21
- Benjamin’s II, Rockville, IN
- Jailhouse Cafe, Rockville, IN
- Shades State Park, Waveland, IN
- Wolcott Rest Area Northbound, Wolcott, IN
- City Office & Pub, Rensselaer, IN
- Hyde Park Animal Hospital, South Shore
Lodgings I have known: Brightwood Inn & Farm
Down on the farm, February 22 and 23, 2020
With a short visit to Starved Rock planned to see bald eagles (maybe), I decided to look for a place to stay in or near Utica vs. Ottawa. I wasn’t optimistic, but to my surprise I found one only a couple of miles from Starved Rock. For some rooms, they didn’t require a two-night stay. Feeling northwoodsy (or nautical), I booked the Mackinac because it looked comfortable. I wasn’t disappointed.
I told the owners about the themed room at Ann Arbor Bed & Breakfast, including how my favorite room, the Maine Woods, earned its name and decor from the rich green carpet. They said they too named their rooms for their favorite places. They mentioned the Aspen room upstairs. Why Aspen? I must have looked puzzled. Because it’s on the top floor. Yes, I’m slow.
The Mackinac has a big gas fireplace, which we tried briefly. After dinner, we found Trivial Pursuit in one of the comfortable public rooms and played until too worn out to continue. The questions were more difficult than I remember, even in my better categories (science and nature, history, geography).
The next day we had our choice of bananas foster or eggs Benedict, along with muffins, cereal, fruit, etc. A gas fire warmed the breakfast room, which looked like it’d been decorated for Valentine’s Day. You can’t go wrong in a dining room with book-lined shelves, one fronted by a realistic morel mushroom knickknack.
The Mackinac has a large whirlpool that I didn’t take advantage of . . . this time. The room overlooks a couple of corn mazes that would be fun to try when grown. I did turn on the fireplace again and kick back in the recliner. Ahhh.
On the way out, I picked up a jar of aronia berry jam and a candle — I have enough candles for a couple of lifetimes.
Next time — the Aspen?
Octave Chanute: Patron Saint of Flight
Facebook has many flaws, but it does alert me when events I might be interested in are coming up. A few weeks ago I found out about the world premiere of Octave Chanute: Patron Saint of Flight, at Indiana Dunes Visitor Center. I knew the Chanute name vaguely from the old Air Force base, but I couldn’t have told you then where the base had been located or why it was named Chanute. This sounded like a way to get in a visit to Indiana Dunes, learn something, and spend what might be otherwise a dull winter afternoon, depending on the weather.
The parking lot was unusually crowded, and when J and I walked in about a half hour early, a good-sized group was watching Shifting Sands: On the Path to Sustainability, a documentary on the history of Indiana Dunes and efforts to restore what can be restored. It’s meant to inspire, but it’s also tragic and depressing.
By the time Shifting Sands ended and Octave Chanute was scheduled to begin, the auditorium had filled up, even when extra folding chairs were brought out. Soon it was standing room only.
Simine Short, author of Locomotive to Aeromotive: Octave Chanute and the Transportation Revolution, and young director Paul Nelson introduced the film. I mention Nelson’s relative age because the audience was mostly 50 plus, possibly 60 plus, which disappointed me because I would like to see younger people interested in history. Of course, when I was younger none of my peers would have been interested, either.
Bridge 16, or the Portage Bridge
The presentation began with some technical glitches (flashbacks to every high school A/V club everywhere!), but my ears perked up at the mention of the Portage Bridge, accompanied by a photo I recognized immediately. Through this film, I found out Octave Chanute was the engineer behind the much-loved railroad bridge over the Genesee River at Letchworth State Park in New York.
Known for his bridges, Chanute was called in when the original timber trestle, the longest and tallest wooden bridge in the world when it opened in 1852, was reduced to ashes on May 6, 1875, after a train had passed over (spark?). Chanute’s iron replacement opened only 86 days after the fire. According to Short’s book, the piers were rebuilt and the uprights and girders strengthened in 1880, “making the bridge better than new.”
The original timber Bridge 16 over the Genesee River
Although modern Norfolk Southern trains were restricted to 10 miles per hour over the Letchworth gorge, Chanute’s bridge lasted until 2017, when the Genesee Arch Bridge opened. The state of New York declined the offer of the 1875 bridge, the last of which was demolished on March 20, 2018. I’d been fortunate to visit the old bridge one last time in 2015. When I’d found out about the premiere of this film, I’d had no idea it would take me back to perhaps the most iconic of my childhood memories. I remember walking along those tracks with my brother during one of his visits.
But wait! There’s more!
Kinzua Bridge
My ears perked up again at the mention of Kinzua Bridge. I’d found out about Kinzua Bridge State Park when I was looking up Kinzua Dam, another place I’d visited as a child, for my 2015 swing through Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania.
It turns out that Octave Chanute was behind the original 2,000-foot-long Kinzua Bridge (or Viaduct), built in 1882 at 302 feet above the narrow valley floor. Short calls it Chanute’s “most spectacular bridge.” She adds that the bridge was rebuilt in 1900 “to keep up with the increasing volume and weight of the coal traffic.” Carl W. Buchholz redesigned the superstructure on the original masonry foundation piers.
By 1959 the viaduct failed safety inspections and was closed to commercial rail traffic. Restoration began in 2002, but in 2003 an F2 tornado “tore eleven towers from their concrete bases. Investigators found that the anchor bolts, installed under Chanute’s supervision, had rusted over the past 120 years.” Over time, the materials had failed the design.
After seeing this film, I’m even happier that I had the opportunity to walk out on what’s still standing of Kinzua Bridge and get a look at the remnants resting in peace on the valley floor. Even destroyed, Kinzua Bridge is indeed a “spectacular” sight.
Why Indiana Dunes?
Of course, most of the film was about Chanute’s contributions to flight and relationship with Wilbur Wright (rocky; Chanute was an open source kind of man and Wilbur believed in closely held information). What’s the link to Indiana Dunes? With their lake winds, elevations, and soft sand, the Dunes were Chanute’s choice for safely testing their experiments — the Kitty Hawk of the Midwest.
Epilogue, March 8, 2020
Octave Grill in Chesterton is named for Octave Chanute. Found out they serve a Chanute burger.
National Bird Day 2020
January 5, 2020, at Indiana Dunes State Park Nature Center
9 photos
Remember the little bird who used to tell you things before anyone else did? One must have told J. that January 5, 2020, was National Bird Day, with a 10 a.m. activity at the Indiana Dunes State Park Nature Center.
Together with several families, we helped to fill the many feeders, logs, and hollow stumps behind the Nature Center with safflower, sunflower, and thistle seeds; peanuts; and other goodies. I was sure the presence of many people clomping around would deter the birds until we went back in, but several hung around in the trees overlooking the feeder area, and the bolder chickadees came in to see what was going on (or to make sure we were doing our jobs).
After breakfast at Third Coast Spice Cafe, a shopping interlude at Molly Bea’s, and a stop at the Indiana Dunes Visitor Center, we returned to take photos and for part 2 of National Bird Day — bird bingo. It didn’t take long to spot a cardinal, a titmouse, and a nuthatch eating upside down. The elusive square was held by the Cooper’s hawk. The staff told us they see one perhaps once a week. That no doubt puts a damper on the feeder activity.
After taking more photos, we settled into the very good little library at the nature center, which has books for kids and books on animals, nature, local history, and art. It’s a gem of a resource which I don’t often see in use.
After I spent more than I should (as usual) at the Schoolhouse Shop, we ended National Bird Day with half-price veggie pizza at Villa Nova in Chesterton. Mmmm. No chicken.
Downy and hairy woodpeckers
December 8, 2019, at Indiana Dunes State Park Nature Center
I’m a little slow but one day years ago when I saw a woodpecker at Promontory Point I realized there are two in the field guides that look very similar — the downy and the hairy. One is smaller but I could never remember which.
Smaller isn’t a good field sign if you haven’t seen both and you’re not sure of the relative proportions.
On a July 2018 visit to Indiana Dunes State Park Nature Center, two woodpeckers happened to land on opposite sides of the same feeder, facing each other. In that moment, I couldn’t miss the most obvious differences between the two, despite the similarity (mostly) of their plumage.
The downy is quite diminutive when seen across from his larger cousin, the hairy. More than that, the downy sports a delicate stub of a bill compared to the hairy’s railroad spike — the bill is almost the length of the hairy’s head.
Finally I got it. I will not have trouble identifying either again. There are other differences, but that bill is the most obvious. Now I have in mind: “downy=diminutive” — body size and bill.
As a side note, the downy is the one you’re more likely to see at your typical suburban bird feeder. I can’t be sure at this late date, but the downy is likely the one my dad fed with free suet from the local butcher.
According to Audubon, the hairy requires larger trees and is less likely to show up at suburban feeders or city parks. I’ve seen enough of them at the nature center to know that area (and their feeders) suit the hairy just fine.
Blue jay
December 8, 2019, at Indiana Dunes State Park Nature Center
I loved many things about where I grew up, like the bird feeders hanging from the wild cherry trees out my parents’ back window. My mother was exceptionally fond of black-capped chickadees, the clowns among snowbirds. Blue jays annoyed my mother because they drove off the chickadees and smaller birds.
The folks at the Indiana Dunes State Park Nature Center seem to have solved this. The smaller finches and snowbirds gather at a tube feeder, while the blue jays and cardinals share tray feeders with gray squirrels (the red squirrels tend to stay on the ground or on the log trough feeders). That’s not to say chickadees, nuthatches, and titmice don’t use the tray feeders, just not at the same time as jays or squirrels.
As corvids, related to crows, jays leave little doubt as to when they’re in the area. The Nature Center is equipped with outdoor microphones to bring the soothing sounds of running water, leaves rustling, and bird chatter indoors. You can be sitting there in a trance, enjoying the peace and small sounds of nature when:
JAY! JAY! JAY!
You’re jarred to consciousness by screeching that’s already loud and further amplified until it sounds like there’s a blue jay in your ear canal. I’ve been known to fly out of my seat almost as quickly as the smaller birds fly off the feeders.
Except the birds on the tube feeders—they can munch on unbothered. If my parents had only known.
Hey, look! A squirrel!
December 8, 2019, Indiana Dunes State Park Nature Center
I’ve never seen a red squirrel in Chicago. Years ago I’d read the bigger gray squirrel dominates and drives them out.
I’ve now seen both species at the Indiana Dunes State Park Nature Center peacefully (more or less) sharing the feeders. I asked one of the staff why they have red squirrels when Chicago (or at least my part of it) doesn’t. She said red squirrels prefer (or need?) conifer trees.
I found my original information that gray squirrels push out the smaller red squirrels was from the United Kingdom. There, the introduced eastern gray squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis, an invasive species, has reduced the native Eurasian red squirrel, Sciurus vulgaris, to near threatened status.
This is where usage of common names is problematic. The red squirrel of northern and central Indiana, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus, is a different animal altogether. Known as “pineys” in Indiana, the red squirrel shares a genus with the Douglas squirrel and Mearns’s squirrel. (Try saying that fast.) When not raiding feeders, these “pine squirrels” feed on the cones of conifers. Wikipedia notes the red squirrel “has been expanding its range into hardwood forests.”
The upshot is I’m not likely to see red squirrels in Hyde Park in the foreseeable future. Through an episode of Urban Nature, however, I learned Chicago does boast a second squirrel species, the fox squirrel (Sciurus niger), which I may have seen and thought was a color variation of the gray squirrel. They’re larger, though. According to Urban Nature, they’re found in areas where gray squirrels fear to tread — where predators like coyotes and feral dogs and cats are more common.
There is another squirrel I’m not likely to see — the nocturnal southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans). During a saw-whet owl banding at the Nature Center, we learned the mist nets meant for the owls on occasion trap other creatures, such as bats and flying squirrels. As much as I would like to see a flying squirrel, the researchers would rather not. An ensnared flying squirrel quickly frees itself by destroying the pricey mist net, putting a damper on the evening’s saw-whet owl banding activity. I can almost hear, “Curses! Foiled again!”
Added June 1, 2024: I found out a while ago that flying squirrels appear at Cornell’s Sapsucker Pond Woods feeders. Here are two of them making a midnight snack run. Squee.
