With a forecast of a warm & partly-sunny afternoon, I decided to take the afternoon off to play hooky at the Illinois Beach State Park north of the City. A new adventure destination for me! As I drove further north, the temp started to drop. As I got close to the park an ominous fog covered the sky. The waves were crashing all around but oddly coming coming out of a foggy distance. The colors were beautiful but oddly shrouded in fog… as I pretty much had the entire lakefront park to myself in an isolating fog.

The scenery was AMAZING…
albeit not the warm & partly sunny afternoon by the lake I had expected.

These rainy Fall mornings are definitely putting a kink on my sunrise biking addiction!!!

Another grey & dreary day in Chicago… so it’s always a welcome surprise to find a splash of color like this sumac bush in my front yard! Loving the range of colors and the natural overlapped textures created by jagged leaves!

Yesterday was another great chance go get out of the City and enjoy the rural landscape. There’s something so calming about driving through farm fields & prairie lands during Fall. A little bit sad knowing that these colors will soon be gone… especially with the gusty winds yesterday.

After pedaling all day & enjoying my free ice cream… I drove out for family night in the suburbs! I couldn’t help but stop & swerve to the curb when I saw this PERFECT MOMENT!!! The colors, the trees, the reflection… MOTHER NATURE IS AMAZING!!!

To help celebrate my big day yesterday, I set out to enjoy another beautiful day of Indian Summer. I just LOVE this week of gorgeous days with amazing Fall colors. It’s been a great week to be “celebrating” & playing hooky during the day! Riding north along the lake took me up though Openlands Lakeshore Preserve to enjoy the lake, the trees, the colors, the freedom… and just being out there enjoying it ALL!!!

Another AMAZING day playing outside in Nature!!!
THANK YOU MOTHER NATURE.

My day started off yesterday with a crisp start to a beautiful Fall day. I hopped on my bike to pedal north for the day… with a quick stop at the Baha’i Temple in Wilmette. Such an amazing building… even better when surrounded with blue skies & warm Fall colors.

I even found a piece of history in back where they show off one of the original “test pieces” to create this magnificent building!

Monochromatic morning… my red bike by a beautiful big red tree! This tree… these colors!!! Mother Nature is AMAZING!

After teaching class this morning, I zoomed off to Rock Cut State Park with my friend Tiffany. The weather was AMAZING again… and practically no one is there in the state parks during the week. A perfect combination… making for another perfect chance to get out of the City to relish in the beautiful Fall colors… again!

The weather this week has been AMAZING!
So who could “blame me” for taking another day off to play hooky?!

I decided today to check out another one of our beautiful Illinois State Parks… by heading up to Moraine Hills State Park pretty far up in the north-eastern-most corner of Illinois. The Fall colors were pretty great, an incredible blue sky, perfect temps… and practically no one was there!!!

I did all three loops of the park and maybe passed a dozen people all day. I saw more sandhill cranes, snowy egrets & great blue herons than people… oh yeah, and two snakes!!!