So once again, Chris and I went on a wonderful ride up to the Chicago Botanic Garden
again after camp. And it was wonderful. And literally “wonder-filled”. The weather
was incredible once again, but something strange was in the air.

As we pedaled north, we saw plenty of deer early on… usually we see more on the way back.
We also saw a bit of roadkill, or should I saw “bike-kill”?… skunk killed by bike… really?!
We’ve never seen that before. Plus we saw a dead raccoon on the road… seen that one.
But as we went further north, we saw two Forest Preserve Sheriffs kind of “hanging out”
on the bridge overpass at Caldwell. Looking around, but doing a bunch of nothing. Again…
never seen that before.

We made it to the Botanic Garden which was beautiful as always. And as we sat back to relax
for a brief moment before turning around and heading back, I was once again struck by the
beauty of the silvery Aspen leaves against the deep blue sky.

And then we started pedaling back. When he got just south of New Trier High School, the
bike trail was blocked off by three, yes count them three, Forest Preserve police cars.
Flashing lights and all… one “cop” in each. They wouldn’t let us pass and continue on the
bike trail. We were pleasant, but pretended “we weren’t from these parts” and didn’t know
how to take the roads back to our cars and therefore had to continue on the trail. They didn’t
buy it. But they did say that would only be about 10 minutes. What?… how can you tell?!
If something is “going on” inside the woods, how do they know it will be done in 10 minutes?!
So we decided to go up to Winnetka Road and try another smaller bike trail entrance that
connects to the main trail pretty quickly. That entrance to the path wasn’t blocked off –
so were pretty pleased with ourselves. But shortly, down the path, and around another curve,
we saw this… something else we have never seen before…

One of the “cops” at this blockade was one of the original two who we passed earlier at
the Caldwell overpass. As well as being one of the three original cars in the first blockade.
He made us stop again… but then told us we could go through if we walked around the cars.
What?… why block the trail if it’s okay for us to continue on? And what happened to that
10 minutes they talked about?! On the other side of the cars, we ran into a group of bikers
& joggers who had been stopped. They were confused as to why they had been stopped –
and how we got through. As we were talking with them, we heard a shot in the woods.
Yep, another thing we’ve never experienced before on this ride. A shot? Or at least a loud
“clap” sound that shocked everyone. I joked about needing to wear my “blaze orange”
bike jersey next time. And then we pedaled on as WE had been “cleared” by the cop.

While riding, we kept trying to analyze what all of that was about. But to no avail.
And then when we were waiting to cross Glenview Road – a Glenview ambulance turned
the corner with siren blaring towards the direction of “the incident.” Coincidence?!

We still have no idea what was going on… but it sure was something!
We saw a lot of deer again today, but honestly… this was a lot more exciting!