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Spring and spring flooding

Posted on April 21, 2013 by dlschirf

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.

Didoughs

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 beagle

Next stop — Utica, the gateway to Starved Rock State Park. After passing through Utica, you cross the Illinois River via a box girder bridge.

A flooded Utica, Illinois

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.

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 tradition, “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.

More adventurous than I

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.

Matthiessen State Park

It was a glorious spring day in a glorious place, just what I needed to stave off growing stress and unease.

Starved Rock State Park, St. Louis Canyon, November

Posted on November 18, 2012 by dlschirf

Indiana Dunes

Posted on September 10, 2012 by dlschirf

Lately I’ve felt like the Energizer bunny — I keep going and going and going. The difference is that I have neither its energy nor its resources. I don’t know what I’m running on, but it should be part of any national energy plan.

On Saturday, September 8, I went to my first physical therapy session. Objectives: Reduce lower back pain and increase walking endurance. I walked the half mile to AthletiCo, where the therapist explained my problem using a model spine that had lost its stiffening rod. I know how it feels. Its nerves protruded between its disks, and I don’t have to imagine what it would feel like if they were pressed due to lack of space — I feel it every moment from my hip to my foot.

The therapist tested the strength and flexibility of some key joints and then I was allowed to relax on a heating pad for 10 minutes of near bliss negated by the next step of a hard knuckle massage that I swear left invisible bruises. At this point, I’m sure I was thinking that gorillas and chimps have the right idea — walking upright is overrated.

Next came some easy exercises designed to open the spaces in my spine and strengthen my core. Everything hurt, but the time I left to walk the half mile home, I did feel better. Real? Or psychological? I do know the compressed nerves are real, that’s for certain.

After another half-mile walk (to the Metra station) and a half hour of my train neighbor’s cranked-up music, I landed at the Homewood Starbucks to wait for J. We made another false start, this time west instead of north, before he aimed his new car toward the Indiana Dunes, that traditional recreation favorite of University of Chicago students and many others. As is typical of me, I never made it there while I was a student — too busy wallowing in my inability to keep up with classes and too afraid to let go of whatever soil I was then rooted in. But on this Saturday in 2012, 30 years later, I arrived at the Indiana Dunes visitor center. Here I managed to take the ranger in the gift shop aback with three digits’ worth of purchases (all I can say in my defense is that more than half was for a birthday gift).

The next stop was the Bailly Homestead and Chellberg Farm, which up until recently was a working farm of sorts, or at least it had animals. Alas, all life is gone, and all that remains is a vintage farmhouse and outbuildings, the former equipped with not-so-vintage cameras to keep an eye on the tourists. The woods behind the house are lovely, dark, and deep, lush with growth with the darkness mottled by sunlight — a great place for a walk.

We headed toward Cowles Bog, which is actually a fen. A densely tree-lined road continued past the parking lot, guarded by a gatehouse and a gentleman in uniform. Down this dark lane lies Dune Acres, population 183, which seems to be open only to residents and their guests — a truly gated community. As pretty as that narrow passage is, that’s not how I would choose to live.

We walked only about three quarters of a mile into the woods before I had to give up. This isn’t like me, but it’s the new reality — little to no endurance.

Next on the itinerary was the state park, where we saw the dunes for the first time. A tiny Chicago lay across the water, slightly hazy but illuminated by the setting sun. With the version of summer that ends on Labor Day over, the beach was sparsely populated, and signs warned of a dangerous rip tide.

A couple of young Mennonite families picnicked near the parking lot, although the adults spent most of their time chasing down a couple of energetic toddlers. Oh, to be two with toes in the sand and not a care! And to be able to remember it, too.

Before seeking dinner we detoured to the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair Homes of Tomorrow, which we could see dimly in the deepening dusk. They were under renovation, but they reminded me of something I’d picture from The Great Gatsby. In the meantime, the lake and the lake grasses were beautiful against the dying light.

We found a restaurant in nearby Chesterton, Octave Grill, and waited out the wait for a table at the Dog Days Ice Cream Parlor. This last was the kind of place that I wish I had nearby here in Hyde Park, but it wasn’t busy. J. had plenty of time to chat up the owner.

And so home after an exhausting, exhilarating day.

2012 Eagle Watch Weekend at Starved Rock State Park

Posted on February 8, 2012 by dlschirf

Diane and beaver friend

Saturday, January 28, J. and I set out for the first day of Eagle Watch Weekend at Starved Rock State Park. Last year, we’d seen dozens of bald eagles from the Illinois Waterway Visitor Center, but this winter remains unusually warm. (As I write this, it’s 42 degrees Fahrenheit; last year on February 1 northern Illinois and Indiana were bracing for the 20 or more inches of snow that would shut down most of Chicago the next day).

With the morning temperatures at just about freezing, the light snow that had fallen the night before made driving and walking hazardous, but it was expected to melt as the day warmed. With the river wide open, there’s no reason for the eagles to cluster on Plum Island near the dam — so they don’t.

After picking up tickets for the World Bird Sanctuary program at noon, we caught the trolley to the Visitor Center. As we expected, only a few birds were perched on Plum Island and the opposite shore. At one point, I saw three in flight, but soon lost even them against the bright sky and dark trees.

At last a small drama began. Two of the eagle-eyed raptors spotted a fish, and one captured the prize. That’s when the battle began, as the second hungry bird harassed its successful competitor, who, despite being buffeted and flipped, clung to its meal throughout the tumbling chase. As Benjamin Franklin famously noted as one of his several objections to the bald eagle as the emblem of the new United States:

For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

Despite the relatively balmy weather, the wind off the river was brisk, and I was glad I’d bundled up. I often wonder how the hungry eagles along the river perceive the chill and if they get weary of it, despite their adaptations.

We returned in time for a quick snack at the Lodge’s café, then headed to the World Bird Sanctuary program. For me, the highlight was the snowy owl, who flew over my head two or three times. The first time, she banged my glasses with her jesses. On her next flight, she brushed my hair with a wing. My neighbor, who found the whole experience thrilling, exclaimed, “She likes you!” The white-necked raven continued their tradition of rewarding $5 or greater donations with a medallion, beaked over to you. When someone handed him a rare $20, however, he was reluctant to drop it into the bin, and it took his handler several persuasive words to get him to relinquish his prize.

Afterward, we returned to the Visitor Center, but there were still just a few eagles, which mostly stayed put. At one-point, a loaded low-sided boat appeared near the opposite shore, and all I could think was how horrible it would be to fall out into that cold, cold water. I could almost feel it closing over me. Clearly, I’ve been spending too much time reading The Greenlanders.

Our next and final planned event was the Illinois Raptor Center program at 4 p.m. The birds, including a snowy owl and bald and golden eagles, had had a long day and were a little stressed, but the speaker was in fine form. While explaining what differentiates raptors from other predatory birds, he mentioned the great blue heron and how dangerous they are to handle — the only birds, he said, for which they don safety gear. As he held up a great blue heron skull with its long bill, he said, “Think of this as spring-loaded scissors with a brain.”

With a few good photos and a few such tidbits embedded in our brains, we headed back to Chicago, where snowy owls have been spotted during this year of the snowy owl irruption.