Why I Oughta...

We packed the kids and their sleds in the car and spent an hour or so out at the White River County Park in Walworth County a couple of weeks ago .  The photo at the top is the hill that greets you as you walk down from the parking lot towards the river.  If you look closely at the top of the photo, you'll see the river winding around the bend.  If you were pretty streamlined and had a good push, you could *ALMOST* reach the river by sled from the top of the hill.   This is the county's largest park and is located just 10 minutes or so away from Lake Geneva. From the county's website : After we hit the hill a few times with the sleds, we took the kids for a little snow hike down the trail that is adjacent to the White River.  We didn't get far, but we did see people doing it right - with snowshoes and cross country skis. Back near the parking lot, there's a large barn - not sure if it is in service, but it looks like it was original the property.  Here's the bar

If you head to the Spruce Plot on the main loop of the Morton Arboretum and park your car directly across the loop from the tall Spruce trees, you are also close to this fallen tree jungle gym.  Walk out of the plot across the main road and go straight.  Soon, you'll find a sunken valley that has a lot of fallen timber.  There, you'll find this mess of tree trunks that you can climb on - just like our kids did in the photo below.   I'll say it again:  COVID took a lot from us and others.  But, it gave us this simple joy: 

 Like the creaking of an old wooden ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the Spruce Plot at the Morton Arboretum isn't just a sight for your eyes.  If you listen closely enough, you'll hear some of the trees swaying and rubbing against each other - way up in the air.  The sound is really quite an interesting part of your visit to this area.  You can go anytime during the year, but I think Winter provides the most striking difference in the area. Have a listen to the swaying of the Spruce trees at the Morton Arboretum : I've written a few times about this particular path at the Morton Arboretum this year - and talked about while COVID has taken so much from us, it has also given our family the Spruce Plot at the Arboretum. Here it is in late Summer - August of 2020 - where everything is still green . Here it is in late Fall - early December 2020 - where all of the leaves have dropped and the Sun is able to hit you *just right* in the morning.   The video above is in early Wint

 Back in September, I posted a photo of one of our favorite spots in the Morton Arboretum called The Spruce Plot .  Or...The "Spruce Plots" as I mistakenly call them.  We were over in the Arboretum recently and - of course - found our way to this area for a little walk.  The sun hits differently in the morning during the Winter at Morton as all of the deciduous trees have dropped their leaves, so the sun comes through the forest and lights up the trunks of the trees.  Here's how things looked when we looked straight East as the sun began to rise in the morning: COVID has taken away so much from all of us - and from our family.  But, one of the really great things that it has GIVEN us are these walks.  

On a recent hike up in Wisconsin at Big Foot State Park - right on the coast of Lake Geneva - the kids and I came across a Geocache box.  We, umm, stumbled upon it.   We were walking on the "Nature Trail" (there are a few different trails there - red, blue, yellow, etc...including a short "Nature Trail" that takes you from one of the main lots down to the bogs/ponds on the shore of the lake. Here are the two kids holding up their treasure: We're (currently) not geocachers.  But, I looked up this package on geoaching.com .  There's this listing : This geocache has been hidden as a part of the Wisconsin Geocaching Association's State Park series. This geocache is hidden on the Nature Trail, just off of the Red Hiking Trail. I wonder if I'll ever amend that (currently) to the description above.   We'll see if the kids want to find more. 

One of the activities that we've been doing with the kids this Summer is spending time on walks (or...maybe some of you call them 'hikes') in state parks, on trails and in the forests.  I hesitate to call them hikes because there's VERY little elevation change and we're walking on trails.  After reading this piece about the difference between walking and hiking , I'm actually NOT SURE what we do.  But, it doesn't really matter.  We've been all pulling up our tall socks, putting on our sneakers and going out on paths.  Both in Illinois (Waterfall Glen) and Wisconsin (Bong and Big Foot , mostly), we get out on trails and spend and hour or two getting into nature with the kids.  On one of our recent trips, Nat found a place called "Burlington School Forest" - which we had driven past a few times.  Turns out, the local school district (K-12) in Burlington Wisconsin keeps a forest area for their students.  From the school district's site

A few days ago, I posted about seeing an Indigo Bunting male bird in a splendid blue coat down at Waterfall Glen .  During the COVID-19 pandemic, we've tried to find time to get down to Waterfall Glen to go walking with the kids as well as dodging the crowds.  When we first went down there, they had the waterfall itself blocked off - in an attempt to keep from crowds gathering.  That was as recent as back in June. There's now a category tag for [ Waterfall Glen] here on the blog that hosts all the posts. The photo at the top of this post is now the second post featuring a Waterfall Glen sign.  One on of our previous walks,  I came across this Oak Tree identification sign and posted about it in June, too . This sign talks about the waterfall and the "men who built it" and mentions that between 1934 and 1938, a company of men from the Civilian Conservation Corps - as part of the New Deal - were stationed up in Hinsdale at Fullersburg Woods.  It was those guys

We were out for a walk at Waterfall Glen and came across this sign on the trail - a bit "in" from the waterfall parking lot off Bluff Road - that shows the two groups of Oaks:  Red Oaks and White Oaks. This sign shows that in the Red Oak Group are: Northern Red Oak, Black Oak, Shingle Oak and Hill's Oak.  in the White Oak Group are: White Oak, Bur Oak, Swamp White Oakk and Chinquapin Oak.  The key difference is that *most* of the Red Oaks have pointed lobes while White Oak lobes are typically rounded.  We have two large Oaks in our backyard.  But, I haven't, at this point, been able to name them.  With this chart, I'm now thinking that I'll be able to do JUST THAT this Fall when I'm seeing the leaves on the ground.