Exploring Over the Long Weekend

The beautiful thing about a long weekend is that the Saturday doesn't feel so terribly rushed since you know you'll have another day to play on Monday. So, this past weekend, we took advantage of that and went out exploring.

So, Chicagoland likes to boast about all its Forest Preserves and you often see posters on the trains proclaiming that you don't have to go *that* far from the city to enjoy nature, but it's taken me a long while to find a good place for hiking (or at least, a path for walking through the woods). Sure there are picnic groves all over (big fields of grass bordered by trees) and big chucks of Forest Preserves (acres of protected land with no paths for walking), but it wasn't until last fall that I discovered some areas that were more conducive to taking walks in the woods.

Recently, I found a most promising one and it's really quite close to me! Townshend, Moon and I discovered it, and the nature museum there, a couple weeks ago, but didn't notice the walking paths until right as we were leaving. So, this weekend we brought Hubby along and returned to explore.

It's fabulous! Definitely the best place for hiking that I've found in all my 10+ yrs of living in Chicagoland. We even saw a deer! I'm so excited to go back again (especially when it hasn't just rained the night before).