Trains in Chicago

We packed the car and hit the road in the morning, although not nearly as early as we had originally planned, and by the time we'd stopped for gas and then again to pick up bagels and cream cheese to take with us, it wasn't morning any longer. The road to Chicago never really feels like a long one to me. On the way to any vacation I find myself full of excitement and energy. Calvin usually takes a nap, Jon, too, and by the time I'm getting bored, with only the hum of the road to keep me company, we're already catching whiffs of Gary through the car's air intake. From Gary it's no time at all, and everywhere we are surrounded by novel scenery in the form of running down industrial centers, and oftentimes construction work, too. This trip enveloped us in low, gray clouds and a cozy, drizzly rain that seemed to lift just as we were hitting the parking lot that is I94 and 290 going through the big city.

Part of the impetus for this trip was a desire to see my brother's new digs—a turn-of-the-last-century loft on the edge of the West Loop. I loved it already when I realized that safe street parking was incredibly easy to find, and its tree lined street, beautiful brick walls, wood floors, tall windows, and wide-reaching view just added to that sentiment. On our first day we spent some time walking through the surrounding area, finding enjoyable oddities in architecture, and then picked up the ingredients for a fajita dinner that we made back home on Curtis's brand new incredible stove, Calvin in the background jumping up on nearby furniture to look out the window every time he heard the sound of an approaching L on the tracks about four blocks away, to which he nearly always added the exclamation "train" with undying enthusiasm. It's not that the train is that loud or that close, but that the child is that incredibly taken with trains.

Curtis is a great sport. He's been in the big city for nearly two years now, and has absorbed city living in a way that makes him nearly a local in his own right. It's a big city, especially compared to the small big town we were raised in, but he knows the streets, he knows the places to eat, he knows the suburbs. I don't think he's ever lost. But he's a great sport because he had absolutely no qualms about playing tourist with us for a weekend. He did not even flinch when, waiting for the L on Saturday morning, we took out our camera and started snapping away. It was, after all, Calvin's first train ride! He loved being near the track, and if he was a little hesitant about the rush and noise of the actual trains themselves, we'd talked a lot about what to expect before we got to the platform and he took the new situation in perfect Calvin stride (meaning, he was quiet and contemplative for the first half of the journey out, but non-stop questions the for its remainder).

The trains were really the highlight of this trip, at least as far as Calvin is concerned. On Saturday we took the green line, transferred to the brown line, then again took the brown line, transferred to the green line, and ultimately arrived back where we started, with only a stop in Lincoln Park, a trip to the zoo, and a late lunch to interrupt the fantastic journey. On Sunday we drove to watch Curtis play soccer, but the soccer field lies right at the foot of multiple tracks, and the soccer game was actually more of a side entertainment to the recurrent passing of all manner of trains (the L, the Metra, and even several freights). The view from Curtis's place includes a panorama of the big city, but that was really just a backdrop to the frequent train sightings on the both L and Metra tracks. And, no matter where we were, Calvin heralded the arrival of each and every train with that same exclamation of "train" with the same undying enthusiasm.

There was more to the trip. The Licoln Park Zoo was wonderful, and I hope to visit it again when it is both warmer and not actually nap time. Chicago food, like the deep dish pizza we had Saturday night and the true Chicago Dogs we inhaled for lunch on Sunday, punctuate a trip like this with fattening pleasure. On our walk home from the L station on Saturday we stopped at a little local wine shop to quick pick up a bottle for dinner, only to find friendly staff, a free wine tasting, and a 10% discount for locals like Curtis. On Sunday, in a last ditch effort to find one more cool thing to do, we ended up at Garfield Park Conservatory, an enjoyably green oasis in the middle of a run down city neighborhood. I guess you could call this the trip of trains, good food, and surprisingly enjoyable finds. When we hit the road to come home at about five on Sunday we knew we'd be driving after dark and after bedtime, but the road back from Chicago never feels very long to me, and always ends in a warm homecoming, padded with the memories of a great trip.

There are a lot of fun pictures, from four different photographers, in the Chicago trip, October 2009 album.

Mrs. O'Leary's Cow

As seen in the Live and Learn section, which we just opened today and are still getting off the ground.

Just one more year... (and pumpkin tour stop 1, Wing Farms)

Jon got older this weekend. Forget the fact that we don't age by year, but instead in minute increments throughout every moment of every day, it was this weekend that he finally added another year to his belt and came within only another 365 days of my own decade. His real birthday was Saturday and we celebrated by spending a couple of hours at the Borders store, enjoying lunch there, and then coming home to work on the website. After that he was a kind enough husband and father to forgo any usual birthday shindigging for that fantastic after-dark hike in the woods. He did get a fantastic cheesecake out of the deal, though; a gift that required no less than a few hours of work, mind you.

The other thing that we did this weekend, in addition to our all morning tour of borders and our magical night hike, was make our first tour of a local pumpkin patch. Our goal this year, because we love fall and because the football season is looking somewhat bleak, is to visit at least three different local pumpkin patches or orchards in search of a favorite spot. When we lived over on the east side of ann arbor town we thought that Wiards Orchard would be our number one spot, and it was fun, but having to pay to get into the country fair before you can even begin looking for a pumpkin, for which you'll have to shell out additional cash later, was less than appealing. After moving to our new location last summer we thought Jenny's Farm Stand would become our mainstay, but they have no on site orchard or pumpkin patch, so their main draw is a number of depressed looking goats and horses, and a rather tall mountain of straw. So we're on the hunt for a new fall hangout in which to place our loyalty.

Wing Farms, the original home of 99% of the hundreds of free rocks you will find in our landscaping, would appear to be a shoo-in for the job, thanks to its proximity and its obvious down-home, family-owned atmosphere, and that's the farm we visited today. It's also the farm we visited at this time last year to bring home hay, corn stalks, and pumpkins. Unfortunately, it's not going to make the cut. Aside from the fact that the pumpkins are not your standard carving pumpkin (which they make clear in their advertisements for "giant pumpkins" as opposed to "the same kind of pumpkin you can buy anywhere else"), the staff is definitely made up of a down home, family owning bunch and their immediate friends and relatives. That wouldn't be bad at all, if they seemed to give a rip about the non-related people shopping there. Last year we came away with the same disappointing feeling that these people don't really want to be selling pumpkins, to which I have to ask, then why do you? So, if you want a giant, strangely shaped, and/or oddly colored pumpkin for your Halloween decorating, this is the place to go, especially if you have no desire to strike up a friendly conversation with the farm staff, or if you don't mind coming away feeling like a twit for having had the nerve to want to buy some of the goods they are showcasing. Local is great, as long as local is great.

Magic after dusk

One of the things we've enjoyed doing on a semi-regular basis this summer is night hiking. We have a wooded area at the end of our subdivision, a parcel that is slated for deforestation and planting of houses should the economy and real estate market ever turn around. But for right now it is a patchwork of fields bordered by marshland and woods of beautiful old growth trees, and it is home to all kinds of wildlife. When we hike back there during the day we are likely to see swans, cranes, squirrels, and a myriad of song bird species that delight the eyes and ears. At dusk we are likely to see deer, hawks, and possibly other small crepuscular animals.  But a night hike is a very different thing. On a summer night the fields would come alive with the sounds of crickets, grasshoppers, and katydids, or the various frogs that inhabit the marshlands there, and we could sit on the ground and gaze up to catch sight of the bats cavorting overhead. Night in the forest is a very different world. So when we got the county parks brochure for the fall term and in it we saw a night hike advertised we marked our calendars with a vibrant eagerness.

So many things can go wrong with an outdoor fall event, and as the rain persisted throughout the week I was more than a little skeptical of the sunshine promised for Saturday, the scheduled day of the hike. But for once luck sided with the hapless weatherman and the clouds that seemed rather threatening through the afternoon brought nothing but a chill, but dry, wind to the air, nothing that an extra layer of clothing and a pair of mittens couldn't handle. We met the hiking group at the designated spot in the park and were pleasantly surprised to find that, instead of the fifty people we expected, we were three of only twelve or so. Calvin was also the youngest of only two children, the other being about ten, and we did meet with a few doubtful glances.  What, after all, were we thinking bringing such a young child out after dark in the cold on an activity that required concentration and quiet? I have learned not to take such looks personally, and instead never tire of enjoying people's marked surprise at being proven wrong by the end of (fill in event here). Calvin was quiet and attentive, and we learned a lot about the stars, trees, and insects in the fall, but the main subject of the evening was owls, and that is where the magic comes in. In all of my years I don't believe I've ever heard a real owl call, and certainly I've never heard an Eastern Screech Owl call. Our guide brought a recording of this little owl, who sounds suspiciously like someone pretending to be a horse, and she played it several times hoping to incite a real owl to respond.

No wildlife event can ever promise results, and though our guide was optimistic (the area was usually good for owling, she said), hikers the previous year had apparently been disappointed. She played the call and we waited, standing in darkness in an unknown wood, even the insects quiet, now that the cold had come. She played the call again, and then again. Maybe five minutes we waited, the anticipation palpable at the first now becoming noticeably strained, and then almost as still as the wood around us. And then it came. That owl had waited until almost the last moment, the cusp of time between staying and going, and then he returned our call. He called twice, then three times. It was eerie at first, this sound, exactly like the one made by mechanical art only moments ago, now coming from somewhere in the distance, and approaching with each repeat. And as we waited, huddled together in the dark, he flew by just a few feet overhead. We heard him again in the trees before us, then he flew past again and we heard him call from the trees behind. Screech owls are territorial, and this little guy wondered what strange owl, who sounded so like him, had dared enter his abode. We found him after his final pass, following his call to strike him with the beam of our flashlight in a tree only a few meters away. I had never heard an owl in the wild before, and I most certainly had never seen one. Calvin and I gasped at almost the same moment (where do I think he gets it?), and we were not the only ones. Our view was brief. The poor owl, probably sensing that he'd been duped, took off to nurse his embarrassment elsewhere, and we continued on our hike, quiet at first, each of us cradling the sense magic in our own way, and then in a cacophony of whispers as we all had to talk at once; we had spoken to nature and it had replied.

It's possible that Calvin most enjoyed the campfire, hot cocoa and marshmallows that followed, but I'm not so sure. The whole way home he repeated the Great Horned Owl call in response to my repeated Eastern Screech Owl calls (ask Jon, it was quite delightful), and today he will still go into a whisper to tell you about how sweet the screech owl was, or practice either call whenever asked. For me, I am still holding the magic of those few minutes in the memory of my heart.

A new coat of paint

We started this blog four and a half years ago.  Really? Yes. Since then we've made some minor changes, most having to do with an increase in picture content, thanks to Calvin, of course, and last year with the addition of the To Your Health journal. Still, little has changed since the inaugural post back in May of 2005, and we've decided that it was about time for a fresh coat of paint. We are excited about our new vision for the blog, and we hope you'll enjoy it along with us. In addition to the new cosmetics, like alterations to the banner and coloring, we have made changes that should assist with navigation around the site: the site navigation links are now in a horizontal bar just below the site banner; quick links to the most recent posts on each of the different journals and the photo albums can now be found in the far right side bar; An additional side bar now houses a new list of links, the tags and categories that will make it easier to browse old posts based on subject. Lastly, coming soon is a new third journal, one that will be dedicated to our homeschooling journey. Look for that to appear in the next few days.

We hope you will enjoy our new coat of paint. And if you have any problems with the site in your browser please let us know, either with a comment on the site or by dropping an email to Jon or myself, so we can fix it.  Thank you for visiting us here so often!