Late night pear tree blooms in the evening glow of a streetlight… as I drive home from the studio after teaching class tonight. Quiet evening serenity & natural beauty.

A couple days of HOT “summer” weather here in Chicago… and we suddenly have a lot of flowers blooming everywhere! Like these beautiful azaleas… that might not be so happy come Monday when we’re forecast to get MORE SNOW!!! Welcome to Spring in Chicago!!!

Okay, so I’m supposed to be home today “starting” to work on my taxes. But when it’s this nice outside.. how can I really be expected to stay inside??? Right? So I “might” have stepped outside for a hot minute for an afternoon bike ride along the lakefront. And it was glorious… and my favorite little blue scilla flowers are in full bloom along the way!

Looks like Adam made it out to Illinois Beach State Park again… and the fortune cookie scavenger hunt is still on!!! Yep, I placed twenty-three ceramic fortune cookies out there over New Years Weekend… 23 for 2023… and apparently people are still finding them! Thanks for keeping us posted Adam… and congrats on adding another fortune cookie to your collection!

So many people love the gingko… so I’ve got some gingko leaves in one of my stamped & soda-fired bowls! Ceramic gingko leaves you can enjoy forever. Still hanging out the the “4×4 : FOUR MAKERS” show… waiting for that special someone to give the gingko bowl some loving!

A little fortune cookie Scavenger Hunt at Illinois Beach State Park!
Handmade ceramic fortune cookies… textured, patterned, stained…
oh, and they rattle too!!!

So here we go… a few visual “clues” to help people find the hidden fortune cookies! Remember, there are twenty-three ceramic fortune cookies hidden throughout Illinois Beach State Park… both North & South Units. Kind of my way to share some “good fortune” for the New Year!

I hid them yesterday… so go get ’em!!!

Of course I’m not going to make it easy for you…
so these little “clues” may or may not help?! Plus, the photos are in no particular order! All part of the game… and FUN for me!!!

And a good thing I brought a couple extra fortune cookies with me…

I found this great piece of driftwood and thought that this would be a perfect place to stash a fortune cookie. When I set the fortune cookie into the hole on the top, it seemed a little wobbly. So I pushed it a bit further back… and it fell right in! ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE BOTTOM!!! I could hear it tumbling down inside… like through a “tube” down the center of the log! Never to be found until this piece of drift wood rots away! Whoops!

Continuing a new New Year’s tradition…

I started this little tradition of mine two years ago during the Covid-19 Lockdown. Remember when there were to parties, no get-togethers, no way to safely celebrate the New Year! During the lockdown, I started exploring some of the Illinois State Parks by myself… safely “quarantining” by myself enjoying the outdoor air. What could be safer?

And then to “celebrate” the 2021 New Year… after a long drawn-out, Covid-filled 2020… I decided to “celebrate” by hiding 21 handmade ceramic fortune cookies for people to find out in a State Park. Then I did it again… with 22 fortune cookies for 2022!

Well, today was the day… bringing in the New Year!!!
23 clay fortune cookies for 2023!!!
Hidden out in a state park for people to find!
Happy New Year… happy adventures… happy searching…

Kicking off the New Year in nature…
Yesterday I took the day off to spend New Year’s Day hiking through the Illinois Beach State Park. A beautiful lakefront park just north of Waukegan, A “treasure: that I found during my Covid quarantine a couple years ago. I had never heard of it before… and apparently very few other people have either! It’s always so unpopulated with people. You can hike for hours and barely run across more than a handful of people out there. Wonderful!

Yesterday was a bit cloudy & overcast, but still a beautiful day to hike around the park. As the name implies, Illinois Beach State Park has a lot of beachfront area. A lot of sand dunes & driftwood. A lot of open prairie grass areas away from the lake. And a lot of swales… yes, I learned what a “swale” was yesterday!!!

New this year, there was no snow & ice formations! Prior years I was up there during Winter marveling over the frozen spectacle, icicles & glaciers all over the lake. So this time, it seemed a lot more like a Fall day that Winter!

Quite a few “tee-pee” structures have also popped-up along the lakefront. This was the largest of them… kind of a structure built out of driftwood logs. Very cool, all uninhabited… but from the looks of some of them, there have been people inside them… some even had brick fire rings inside!

This was a cool stick I found on the beach… literally covered with shells. Like barnacles on a ship!

And a couple more “tee-pee” structures along the beach. Kinda wonder how long they’ve been here?!

Cattails look like they’ve weathered the storm!

Always fun to see some stacked rocks along the beach. I found this grouping in the South Unit. Already stacked by a cute young family… the kids were so excited about their creations as they posed for photos!

Loving the lichens!

After another trip to the “pottery” Post Office, it seemed like the perfect chance for a beautiful morning stroll through the snow-dusted park! And then it’s back to work…

A bit rainy & slushy today… but not too much accumulation in the City. So does this still count as our first official snowfall of the season???