Imagine our surprise when we got to the park after lunch with all of our Summer Camp kids… only to find a small nest of four baby bunnies. Very small. Very cute. With their eyes not quite open. Irresistible… not good with tons of kids everywhere!!!

They’re located in a square bench unit that surrounds one of the large trees, nestled in a pile of wood chips. Kind of a safe, protected area for the babies. Not really sure how they’ll get out… but we’re hoping for the best. And explaining over & over & over again to the kids why they can’t pet them!!!

Sure, this weekend may have been a little chillier than normal. But the afternoon sky today was stunning with beautiful clouds floating by. I loved the “highlighted” edges and the darker undersides. Both contrasting against the perfectly blue sky.

Another beautiful day… for another beautiful bike ride!

It happens every summer. Everyone in Chicago knows it.
First we suffer through a few days of biting black sand flies. Biting. Painful. Pesky. Annoying.
Good to know that soon to follow will be the swarms of HUGE dragonflies! And they were all over the lakefront this morning. Thousands & thousands of them!!!

It’s survival of the fittest… and I’m banking on the dragonflies!

This morning, the humidity was high. The grass was wet. And there was a wonderful coating of morning dew all around. Just waiting for the sun to come up and burn it all away.

Since my last trip to Bombay Hook was so cloudy, I decided to give it another try this morning. Headed north of Dover. Fewer clouds gave me a completely different sunrise. Clearer, brighter and a lot more sunrise reflections!

While the sun was rising, all around me the snowy egrets were fishing in the marshes. Hundreds of them. They were everywhere. Slowly stalking their prey. And a little skittish when I would get too close to take a picture. Still pretty cool.

So it was another beautiful ride through Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge. And once again, not a single car or another person anywhere to be found. Just me, the sunrise… and hundreds of snowy egrets!!!

Ready to take a long walk off a short pier?! So serene. So calming.

And you know how I love rusty metal… and weathered wood is a very close second! So I especially loved the textures of the wooden pier and the green algae-moss growing on it.

Along the shore of Pickering Beach, I found a lot more horseshoe crabs.
And with these signs along the road… it wasn’t so much of a surprise this time!

Again, for some reason, most of the horseshoe crabs were lying on their backs, feet sticking out and tails pointed up!?

This time, maybe because they were on the sand, you could also see where marks where the crabs were trying to flip themselves over. It kind of made me feel bad that you could see how they were struggling to flip back over.

As I was taking pictures, I heard some very faint clicking sounds. And then noticed that there was some very small movement. A leg moved. And then another. It was still alive!!! Oh… what to do?! So I flipped it over with my foot… and it started to move! And VERY slowly, worked its way back towards the water.

I felt pretty good knowing that I had helped a crab get back to the water. And since it worked for one, I took some time and flipped over a couple dozen of them!!! My good deed for the day. And just for reference… these horseshoe crabs are HUGE… so here’s one of the crabs and my gym shoe.

This morning I decided to go further north of Dover to find another spot for a morning sunrise. I went north of Leipsic, and found the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge. It was pretty cloudy as I was headed in, with beautiful red clouds low on the horizon.

Once I made it into the park, I rode around the circle trail and found that they clouds were kind of “winning” over the sunrise. I loved the huge, open marshy areas… and the starkness of the trees. It was very moody this morning. And a little odd as I didn’t see a single person all morning long. No one in the park besides me and a bunch of migratory birds!

Soon enough, the sun was up behind the clouds. The color may have been gone, but the clouds were still beautiful… as well as the reflections on the water.

As I was leaving the park, I took one quick look back and saw that the sky was covered in a blanket of clouds. Okay, so I had to stop for just one or two more photos!!! Shoot me.