Reserving judgment

Illinois state parks are finally tapping into the power of the information superhighway. As of July, you can reserve your campsite online.

I checked my records, and it's been almost five years since I've camped in an Illinois state park. This follows a camping-mad time of 13 state park trips in four years. The change in direction is somewhat intentional since so many sites lack the privacy and beauty required by the lofty campchicago.net standards. The focus has shifted to National Forest sites and primo destinations.

This may be the summer to explore a return to the convenient Illinois state park experience. Certainly, more fodder is needed for the blog and Camp Chicago!

Mundane settings

I haven't really done anything that extreme in the outdoors. I once was a subscriber to Outside Magazine for a while, but my endeavors wilt when compared to what most of the people featured in that publication do. I've topped out on Class II rapids. I've peaked at 12,000 feet. I've probably hiked, at most, 12 miles in one day. I'm really just a world-class car camper.

A couple recent events serve as reminders that Mother Nature can have an impact even in mundane settings. The deadly floods in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas are beyond the scariest thing a camper could ever imagine. The Little Missouri River rose a horrifying 20 feet in four hours, overnight no less--the timing couldn't have been worse for the people in the Albert Pike Campground. The destruction is reminiscent of the flood that struck Nelson County, Va., also overnight, in 1969 due to Hurricane Camille.

A few years ago, we hiked to Volcan Pacaya, near Guatemala City, Guatemala. It isn't quite a mundane setting--we walked very close to bubbling lava--but it certainly was a fairly typical tourist trek at the time. Last month, Pacaya began spewing significant lava and ash for the first time in almost two decades. It rained ash all the way to Guatemala City, where it piled up in the streets. An AP story reports that the lava continues to flow, and tourists are wandering perilously close. It notes that even in quieter times guidebooks warn about the hike to Pacaya.

The lesson in all of this? Stay close to home. The most extreme thing I did today was clip a few herbs from the back balcony.

Fireworks display

A roundup of recent news of interest:

The search for the asian carp continues. There was another fish kill, this time a few miles from Lake Michigan on the Little Calumet River, not far from the area pictured above. Thankfully, no fish were found. The outcome will lead to a re-examining of the whole situation.

Advocates for the sensitive Montrose Beach Dunes sanctuary are concerned about the city's plan to move a portion of the Independence Day fireworks display to Foster Beach. I've read some comments on message boards suggesting the city surround the dunes with security guards. Fat chance.

Driftless area is as pro-Midwest as any blog out there, and the Big Ten conference is like the force--it binds us together. The Tribune's Steve Chapman summarizes our sentiments toward Big Ten expansion by making a solid geographical argument.

"If your students can harvest oysters without leaving the state, you are not a Big Ten school. If they can leave class and be standing in a cornfield within 20 minutes, you are."

Extreme southwest

Southwest Michigan is a land of tall sand dunes, wetlands, deciduous woods, cropland and quaint small towns. We spent Saturday and Sunday in the vicinity, first at the little town of Buchanan, Mich. Buchanan has only one stoplight and a handful of galleries and consignment shops (SL Consignment is our favorite). There's a fast-moving stream that actually flows under the main street and into a pond near the one stoplight. We were in town for the Un-Sanctioned event. Nearby Fernwood Botanical Garden was a highlight, and we could have spent a lot more time there--wild fields, woods, an arboretum and ravines leading to the St. Joseph River.

We never really left the extreme southwestern corner of the state, spending all of our time in Berrien County and venturing only as far north as Bridgman and as east as Niles. Perhaps the No. 1 natural highlight was Warren Woods (pictured), one of the last virgin stands of forest in the Midwest. The avian highlight may have been a late-season canada warbler (or nester?) in the ravine along the Galien River.

We took the Red Arrow Highway south from Bridgman to New Buffalo, passing many art galleries, cafes and shops. New Buffalo is a little Mackinaw City-like, but the many eateries and shops and views of the deep blue water of Lake Michigan were great. With the temps in the 80s and lots of beach-goers, it really felt like summer.

We wrapped up the journey by taking Route 12 west through Indiana Dune country and into the Southeast Side of Chicago. We stopped at a favorite oasis, Miller Woods in Gary. It's a small refuge that is mostly a well-preserved oak savanna, carpeted with ferns and wildflowers.

Rodent fun

I'm a sucker for a squirrel-at-a-baseball-game video. It turns out that Target Field also had a kestrel hanging out on a foul pole recently, too.

Arboreal varmints

This post is long overdue, but I recently stumbled across a squirrel study that is right in my wheelhouse. Project Squirrel has been taking place for the past several years right here in Chicago. It encourages people from across the country to submit their squirrel observations. In particular, it focuses on the Chicago area's big three of fox, gray and red squirrels. (Recall driftless area's "Kankakee trio," recording all three in one day January 2009.) The observations are interesting as you dig deeper into the Project Squirrel Web site. The project studies questions like: Why do gray squirrels dominate college campuses? Why do fox squirrels reign in suburban areas? Can the species co-exist? It's great to see others getting squirrelly.

Park potential

The Chicago Tribune featured Chicago's "underbirded" parks this past week. The Chicago Ornithological Society's annual underbirded parks trip is this weekend. I am certainly one of the underbirders as I've focused on the popular Montrose location. There are some great parks in the interior of the city that can be tapped for birding, especially this time of year.