Troll Hunting

All around our area, there are bunches of nature preserves and a few gardens which are more manicured. Most of the time we stick to the ones that are closer to home for the sake of convenience (and kid-related time constraints). However, every now and then, conditions align so that we can branch out and explore new places.

There's the one spot, the Morton Arboretum, that's been on my list of places to visit for a while now. I've heard rumblings about how nice it was and, over the years, lots of my friends have recommended the arboretum, but we'd never been before.

Then recently I heard that they got some trolls who came in for a visit. All summer, friends have been posting intriguing pictures, and even my brother in Colorado reminded me they were there right before we had a day off school.... it seemed like a sign. So, I resolved to finally go!

Little Moon is getting better about occasionally skipping his nap, so we decided to spend the whole day exploring. Still, I've found it's always best to get places early; while the day is still young and the crowds are thinner.. so we left in time to be there just a little after they opened to start our explorations. The first place we came across was a path that circled a little pond. All along the path were bunches of decorated scarecrows from girl scout troops around the area. These were some favorites:

The trolls were sprinkled all over the whole park. To see them all in one go would have been a hike of about 7 miles. I did not feel that ambitious with the kids in tow, so we opted for a more strategic approach in our exploring. To start, there were two trolls right near the pond, so we did a proper hike around to find those.

Troll 1 - a rather destructive fellow:

Ahhhh! Trolls!!!

 

Troll 2 - This guy was hiding out in the bushes, waiting for some unsuspecting humans to wander by:

Human trap!

Some years, the changing of the leaves is more impressive than others, and you never know quite what it'll be from year to year. This day, despite it being unseasonably warm and humid, it seemed we were there just in time for the start of the leaves changing.. it was lovely!

 

After seeing the trolls that we could walk to, we headed over to the huge children's garden to continue our wanderings. All over along the paths, everything was decorated with a definite Autumn theme:

frog fountain, complete with rocks for throwing in for satisfactory splashes

musical flower garden

acorn plinko - with little slots predicting the end of the acorn's life cycle (eaten by a squirrel, growing into a tree, squashed by a car, etc)

water everywhere! should have packed extra clothes for this one... good thing it was a warm day!

"Mom, there's allergy on these rocks!" (i love that he still calls it that)

Townshend was here and there and everywhere - makes it a little challenging to get a picture of him

After all that running and hiking and playing, we were all a little tuckered out. So, after our picnic lunch, we decided to finish our troll hunt in the car. Since were driving anyway, I wanted to drive the whole place, which has an impressive 1700 acres... it was beautiful! And we found a couple more trolls too:

Troll 3 -

Troll 4 - This was one I'd seen on the website, but they don't really tell you which one is where and we did have to pick and choose (we only saw 4 of the 7) so I was excited that we did find this one with the open mouth:

stinky feet!

Aaahh! They're being eaten alive!

successful escape

All in all, an excellent adventure. As far as the hiking trails... they were a little more manicured than I prefer; I like the forest preserves that are a little more woodsy. But that children's garden and the trolls were most definitely worth the trip!