Tag: flower

  • New Business Plan …

    Comlara Park, IL, August 2026 Toupees for eagles! Think about it. There are more than 400,000 Bald Eagles in North America alone. It is an untapped market. We will be setting up a go-fund-me site to start this up. Premium early donors will get a free toupee for their eagle! And now, back to our…

  • Burr, It’s Hot

    Comlara Park, IL, August 2026 Kate finally found something that her iPhone could not take a decent picture of. It was the small white flower in the previous post. The R7 did an okay job, but it was just using the 55-250 mm lens, which is not the right choice. Despite being 85+ degrees and…

  • Comlara Park Trails, Knot, and Boat Ramps

    Hudson, IL, August 2026 You know how you have one of those days where everything seems to go awry. That was today’s adventure. Our original plan was to hike the Lakeview Nature Trail around 4 pm. We got out to the trail closer to 4:45 pm. Then, Kate needed a bathroom break and none was…

  • A Truncated Hike

    Summit Lake State Park, IN, July 2026 No one was hurt, but when the mosquitos buzzing would give a World War II vet flashbacks to Pearl Harbor, it is time to stop or use bug spray. Technically, we did have bug spray in the car; we just were not wearing it. Okay, Okay, let’s start…

  • A Walk on the Mild Side via Selfie

    Summit Lake State Park, IN, July 2026 John tends to take a while when photographing insects, birds, etc. I end up getting a little bored. To alleviate boredom, I end up taking selfies. This post is dedicated to selfies and keeping myself entertained while trying not to scare all the bugs and wildlife away. (On…

  • A Walk on the Mild Side

    Summit Lake State Park, IN, July 2026 That title does sound like a lot like a Taco Bell commercial, but the walk certainly was not that wild. Summit Lake State Park has five hiking trails, but two are connected. We had hiked and biked the roads some, but we had not hiked the trails. It…

  • Cuyahoga Valley National Park

    Cuyahoga Valley National Park, OH, July 2026 We planned to go to Cuyahoga Valley National Park to bike on the canal trail. (It is not pronounced the way it looks; the proper pronunciation is Kai-uh-how-guh.) The name is Native American for “Crooked River”. (John wonders if they call the leaders of our country Cuyopoliticans?) The…

  • Triangle Lake Bog

    Ravenna, OH, June 2026 When searching Google for things to do, John had seen a short blurb about Pitcher Plants and Triangle Lake Bog. He forgot about it, but the kayaking naturalist brought it up as a thing to do in the area. The bog was only 10 to 15 minutes away, so we went…

  • Kayaking on Michael J. Kirwan Reservoir

    West Branch State Park, OH, June 2026 Towards the end of the stay at West Branch State Park, we reserved a spot for kayaking with a naturalist. The parks in Ohio are more expensive than some other states, but this is one of the benefits of the Ohio State Park system. Some states have more…

  • Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial

    National Mall, DC, June 2026 The first stop, after the Smithsonian Castle, was the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial. On the way, we had to pass by the National Mall Carousel and through the Mary Livingston Riley Garden. The carousel is not the original one at the mall. The full history of the carousel can be…