We are having some incredible weather here in Illinois this week. A friend on Facebook described it yesterday as being a day that looked like fall and felt like spring. We’ve had high temperatures in the mid to high 70s with a warm breeze.
Today I don’t work so I had time for a nice long walk. A morning like today couldn’t be missed. We are blessed in this area to have a great system of forest preserves and park districts, run by both our cities and our county. I am trying to visit as many of them on my morning walks as I can. Today I chose to head a little bit west to the Campton Nature Trails. What a beautiful place! There are mown horse trails that loop around the entire property and cross former farm fields and through old growth woodlands. There is a nice choice of longer and shorter trail loops which is nice when you don’t have as much time for a walk as I did this morning. I took my time today and walked the entire perimeter trail and took about an hour and a half. I had the place almost entirely to myself. Near the end of my walk I did encounter a friendly gentleman and his standard poodle. But other than them the only other living things I saw were a large flock of blackbirds a quiet run-in with Bambi.
Can you see her? We stood like this for a few seconds. She didn’t move when I slowly reached in my pocket for my phone to take her picture. She even got a little curious and took a step or two toward me after I took her photo. I took a few steps in her direction after thanking her for letting me capture her image. She flicked her tail and a friend I hadn’t noticed off to my left also flicked its tail and they both disappeared into the underbrush.
Bonus points if you can spot both of them!
This photo is looking the other way. We’ve finally had some decent rain in the past few weeks so there is actual running water in our little creeks and streams in the area again.
After looping back around through some more woodlands I came out at the creek again. But this time the wasn’t a nice little bridge to cross.
A month ago this would’ve just been a dip in the trail. Today it had a decent little flow of water and lots of paw and hoof prints in the mud. I tried to cross by balancing on a medium sized rock in the middle but it was unstable and I ended up stepping in the water. It was pretty shallow so only my socks got a little wet. They were already pretty damp from the dew on the grass.
I am definitely adding this forest preserve to my regular rotation of morning walk destinations. The trails here will be particularly nice for snow-shoeing in the winter. If I had a horse this would be one of my favorite places to go trail riding.
What is bringing you joy this week? Have you made a new discovery?
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