After the funeral on Saturday, I don't
think I will be back in Dixon, Illinois all that much. I've been here
many times before, usually to attend funerals with Gary and of late,
to visit Shirley and to keep Gary company as he stayed here to be near
her in the nursing home.
This week, I thought I would like to
visit some of the places I've never seen.
Gary stayed at the house fielding phone
calls about the funeral so I was on my own. I found there were four
places to take hikes in the vicinity. I thought I might go to the
Franklin Creek State Nature Park and was driving that way when I saw
the sign for Lowell Park.
Gary once took me there during one of
his going back in time drives. He told me that he ran a concession
stand there, selling hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and sundries like
film, candy, and so on. He made five or six thousand dollars a
summer, which was a lot of money in 1963.
We attended a picnic in Woodcote,
Lowell Park's cottage, for Gary's 45th high school
reunion.
Today, I wanted to take time to hike on
some of the trails. I started down at the Rock River, which is
getting very high. The beach is mostly under water, but Gary says
this is very common this time of year. Ronald Reagan was a lifeguard
there before he went to Hollywood.
The trails were not marked, there were
no trail maps, so I immediately got lost. This is one of the great
things about hiking, not knowing exactly where one is going. However,
I could hear traffic noise and as long as I generally aimed toward
it, I knew I would find the entrance and of course, I did. The woods
were still mostly brown with a little green beginning to peek out of
the old leaves.
Woodpeckers were working the trees, but
I caught sight of a little bird. What was it? I noted the gray body
and the yellow slash on the top of its head. Like all warbler sized
birds, it didn't want to sit still so I followed it around the
trail. When following warblers and their ilk, I often think of Audubon who had his people shoot the birds so he could paint them. At least this time, the birds could hide behind leaves.
When I found myself at the nature
center I went in to query the attendant. I found a young woman there
who had just begun to work there for the summer. I asked about the
bird but it turned out she knew very little about avian life. The
naturalist had started her out with a sheet of photos of common
birds. She still didn't know the difference between a dark eyed
junco and a chickadee.
The woman said she had always wanted to
go camping in Wisconsin. I found two booklets on the Nicolet National
Forest in my glove compartment and took them in to the center for
her.
I thumbed through my Sibleys and
eventually figured it out. I had seen a golden crowned kinglet. I
hadn't seen once since I was hiking hgh in the Rockies at the Fourth
of July Pass years ago. It was a nice find.
When I got back to the farm, I parked
the car and was just about to go in the house when I noticed
something moving in Gary's van. A male cardinal had flown in through
the open door and gotten himself tangled in a webbed hanger and was
frantic. I got Gary from the house to untangle the poor thing.
Nothing like a day with nature to chase
the winter blues away.
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