Crossing Into Illinois

At just a little over five miles into our stroll this morning, we passed out of Indiana and into Illinois at the town of Lansing. In the heart of the sprawling metro area of Chicago which stretches from Gary, IN in the east and extends through Lockport, IL in the west, there are so many routes to cross the state line that this one didn’t even have a sign designating the crossing.

Crossing the border into Illinois

Navigating the Chicago metro area has been a concern of ours given that it’s a journey of about sixty or seventy miles. Fortunately, Dad had a work colleague that lived in the area, and she consulted her family and recommended a route. On the upside, the whole path has been extremely safe, and that eliminated one of our main concerns.

On the other hand, the trail we followed took us through a great many suburban areas.  This can be a little dreary because it’s easy to get caught up in the sameness of the neighborhoods.

My mind tended to wander thinking about the cast iron manhole covers and storm grates that sprinkled our path. These iron accoutrements bore inscriptions such as New Lebanon Iron Works, Michigan and Naneenah Foundry, Wisconsin. They conjured images in my mind of rivers of molten steel coursing out of the crucible and into the molds.  Were these engines of industry still turning out street bling, or had their arc furnaces been packed up and sent overseas to continue their production elsewhere?

Late in the day as I was sitting on a hiker rest stop (commonly referred to a guard rail), I didn’t notice the man in the pink shirt walk up to me until he asked, “What are you doing?”  Snapped out of my industrial musings, I glanced up and replied that we were hiking.

“Hiking….that’s no fun.” He paused and I tried to come up with the right reply.  

“Breaking into houses is fun.”

Now he had my attention.

“Do you like bonfires?”

Still behind in the conversation, I finally said, “I’m not sure breaking into houses is fun.”

“Yeah….it’s probably bad, but what about burning down houses, but only the vacant ones with nobody in them?”

“I’m pretty sure that burning down houses is bad too….even the vacant ones.”

He looked a little puzzled by my lack of felonious enthusiasm.

“If they’re vacant, they could collapse and kill a kid. Plus,” he nodded toward the fire station across the street, “it’ll give those guys sitting on their broke asses all day long something to do.”

“No, I’m pretty sure that burning down houses, even if they’re vacant, is bad.”

“But don’t you like bonfires?”

“Too much work,” I relied as we shrugged on our packs and headed west.

Just when you think you might be getting a little bored by the scenery, something will pop up and change your entire perspective.

That’s not the only weird thing that happened today.  A little later, we were passing through the Bartel Grassland Land and Water Reserve. We passed the sign pictured below warning of the dangers of ice.  Perhaps not quite as strange as the bonfire conversation, but it does seem a bit inconsistent with the season.

Seasonally Inappropriate Signage in the Bartel Grassland Land and Water Reserve

May you live in interesting times.