Friday morning we went on a rainforest hike to a couple of waterfalls.  It really lived up to its name as a rainforest, as you can see here.

Mandy and her sister were braver than I was.  That water was cold!

Me at the beach later that day.

This tree was huge, and the branches spread out and grew into other trees.

On Wednesday we went whale watching and snorkeling.

This is how windy it was!

From here,

To here,

To the world above the clouds.  Breathe deep, move slow, the air’s thin up here!

I managed to get a nice case of the flu/cold virus that’s been hitting everyone lately. The week after my last post, I was laid out and unable to move myself out of the apartment, much less visit any forest preserves. Finally, a few weeks ago I was able to visit the Wolf Road Prairie. The bad news is, I went too early to really catch the spring bloom. So my photostream might seem rather barren.

It was a nice, quiet experience though, more relaxing in some ways than walking through the woods, because the open space cut out a lot of noise and rustling that happens in the woods, and because I could see exactly where other people were, rather than hearing their voices but not knowing where they were coming from. Generally, people are fairly quiet in the prairie. It’s frequented by birdwatchers for the most part, and I strongly recommend you bring along a pair of binoculars if you go. Especially if you are a complete birdwatching newbie, if there are other people there someone is bound to point out a species you might completely overlook otherwise.

Broken sidewalks crisscross the prairie, serving as paths to traverse without damaging plant life. These are the remnants of an attempt at developing the land just before the Great Depression. If not for someone’s financial crisis, this land would be subdivisions right now. Currently, it’s relatively protected, but the threat of development always looms. The 80 acre piece of land resides at the corner of Wolf Road and 31st Street. There’s parking available in little pockets along 31st street.

The prairie is not just grasses, there are also wetland areas with frogs, ducks, etc . . .

I didn’t post last weekend. I wasn’t able to get out to any woods, a shame, really. The weather was terrific, not like Friday. Then I got caught in the whole American Airlines fiasco, where my flight out of DC was one of thousands canceled for inspections that should have happened sooner, as a matter of routine. Some of the customer services people tried to blame the government, but I always like to blame the companies. After all, if you worked for American Airlines and screwed up like this, do you think they’d listen to your excuses?

Anyway, I was happy to be back home Friday, and since the morning seemed reasonably nice, I ventured out despite a nasty cold that was forming. Naturally, by the time I got out there, the weather had taken an ugly turn. I was relatively close to home, checking out Schiller Park, bordered by Irving Park and Desplaines River Roads, near O’Hare Airport.

I visited the groves at Schiller Park South, off Irving Park Road, then I went back up to River Road East and turned in at Catherine Chevalier Woods. I know I missed a lot of entry points and trails, but really, this wasn’t the best experience.

There are a lot of depressing sights in most of Cook County’s Forest Preserves, including litter and things like this:

And I have to admit that I find it slightly creepy to see cars always parked in the lot, with people in them, usually men, doing nothing in particular. I find it hard to believe that nature is enjoyed from the driver’s seat of a closed vehicle. Now, I hate when people assume bad things about someone right off the bat, but there really and truly is something odd about a man gazing at me from his car as I take photos.

Then there were the deer.

Cute, huh? But they were seriously getting way too close. This is not a good thing, not for them or for the people who visit these woods. They have no natural predators (I doubt coyotes would count, not when there are plenty of smaller animals and garbage to select from) and the less they fear people, the more they’ll make a nuisance of themselves. Running in front of cars, virtually mugging hikers for food, getting in the way of bike riders, and sharing their wonderful ticks. I probably sound like a grouch, but there’s a reason you’re told not to feed the animals. This is probably a topic I’ll cover very often, as urban wildlife populations are growing and presenting some interesting challenges.

Check out the flickr set for more images from this abbreviated excursion.

And here I begin: Bemis Woods South is what my childhood self used to refer to as “The End of the Bike Trail,” because, that’s what it was. And as a kid, when you’ve ridden the entire Salt Creek trail, that’s an accomplishment. The scenery is nice, truly, but my earliest memories were of mountains and a vast wilderness. Nope, not so.

Still, this does rate pretty high on my list of favorite forest preserves, if only for the nostalgia factor. Check out my flickr images for more of the photos I took on my excursion Saturday.

So this particular trip was a little early in the year, and a lot of the trails were still muddy. I walked along as much as I could while avoiding the mud. At times, I ran into situations where going further just wasn’t worth it.

Um, that puddle was a lot bigger than it looks here. Really.

By the way, that deer leg that I posted Sunday wasn’t placed in that tree by me. I just thought I should mention that now, before anyone had any ideas that I was running around the woods with animal bones just for fun. And for those of you who might want another look at that leg:

Yet woods are scary places too. I’ve gotten myself lost in some larger state parks, and sometimes find the wildlife around here is a little too accustomed to people. My sole encounter with a coyote was when I spotted one at the edge of the road one New Year’s Eve, but I’m aware how prevalent they are in the suburbs. Nature is sinister as well as peaceful; beneath that serene panorama there are hundreds of creatures fighting for their lives. And let’s not forget that the mundane world intrudes on the woods as well. In the parking lots of every Forest Preserve there’s at least one car that has a random person just sitting in there, waiting. Far be it from me to question what people do with their time, but I always feel a little spooked starting on a trail knowing that someone like this is watching me. And then a trail could also lead you to places like this:

Still, there’s something satisfying to following a path, seeing where it leads. You never know what you’ll find.

But aside from all the weirdness, there’s a lot to the forest preserves.  They are a major asset to the city that are well worth fighting for.  Part of what inspired me to start this blog was a recent Chicago Public Radio piece on “Chicago’s Ailing Forest Preserves.”  Check it out.