Summer Solstice

June 22, 2020

We had a good week around the northern hemisphere’s Summer Solstice on Saturday (nod to Colette’s blog post title this week!) Sunrise is around 5:20am this week, and sunset is around 8:30pm. We’re enjoying the nice long days, and it’s really feeling like summer here now. In the last week, we’ve spotted Cedar Waxwings at the park, seen in a page from our bird book below. They have such perfectly drawn little eye masks, we’ve been calling them The Incredibles as a reference to the superhero animated movie. We’ve seen the cedar waxwings at Humboldt Park mostly, but also in our backyard and at the Indiana Dunes.

After a pretty regular week, we had planned to meet Mike and Andrea in Miller Beach on the weekend. Turns out they went out of town instead (way out of town, to New Mexico!) but very kindly offered that we could stay at their place. We declared it to be a mini-vacation and headed down first thing Saturday morning. We started with a hike in Cowles Bog. We started at about 8am and it was already pretty hot, so while it was definitely quiet in terms of people visitors, we didn’t see a whole lot of birds. We did see a Caspian Tern at the lake and a Red Bellied Woodpecker inland!

The pic of John below was taken for reference purposes so he can show it to the barber again, but I think his new haircut is really nice so am posting it here too! Other pics are from Cowles Bog and the beach there, and then sunset at Miller Beach. We did go in the lake for a quick dip but the water was pretty cold (about 65F) so didn’t do any sustained swimming! Very refreshing though.

Establishing map of the area, showing Chicago to the Dunes. It takes less than an hour to drive there.

Below is a more detailed look at the lakeshore, showing the area marked from Gary to Indiana Dunes Tourism above. Note the Indiana Dunes State Park marked to the right…

We had a very relaxing Saturday afternoon and evening, with takeout tacos and beer from the 18th street brewery in Miller. Sunday morning we decided to check out the Indiana Dunes State Park, which somehow we haven’t ever been to before. It is really great, with a variety of trails through the dunes and forest, and a much longer and wider beach than other nearby beaches. With Lake Michigan water levels so high, beaches are experiencing a lot of erosion and are becoming very small – making it even harder for people to distance.

A wind turbine blade was being transported down the Dunes Highway. They are so huge.
At the Indiana Dunes State Park, we started up one trail marked “rugged” to find that it was part of a 3 dune challenge. We made it up Mount Brady relatively unscathed (tell that to my calves today) and the view from there was great. We took a more moderate trail to loop around and back to the beach, deciding to complete the 3 dune challenge in the Fall when it wasn’t so hot and humid.
Nice to take stairs down after scrambling up shifting sand on the way up!
Here’s the stats on the dune!
Kinda funny that 192 was a big elevation!
Coming back, the view out to the lake.
At the shore, the bank swallows seemingly nest in these holes they make in the dune wall.

Later on Sunday, Liam came around for a visit in the back yard, and we got a Father’s Day pic in which the “boys” are really making John look short!

Sorry this is sideways but we had dinner from Elske – amazing as always. The meal was a buckwheat pancake with gruyere, mushrooms and kale, a pea and asparagus side dish, and a beet and strawberry salad.
We also had an afternoon skype with Jeff and Maddie in Naperville, Mom and Dad in Grandview, and us in Chicago. Debbie called in from a work trip to Denver, but had to leave before I took the photo.
Backing up a bit, we also had a round the world skype for Fathers Day with the Kennys on Friday afternoon our time. We lamented that this week John was meant to leave for Cannes, I was set to follow him a week later, and Colette and Rory were leaving for Ireland. Instead we have staycations all around – trips to Clare, Newcastle, the Indiana Dunes and Tramore are planned for this year!

I always note that the tiger lilies bloom like clockwork on the weekend of the Puerto Rican festival. This year we ended up having two informal weekends of parading rather than one big official event (in case anyone was curious after last week’s post ended on a cliffhanger on the subject!). But who knows, maybe there will be 3 or more weekends of parading… Check back next week 🙂

8 Comments on “Summer Solstice”

  1. Great blog and must be so nice to get away somewhere and have a change of scene! For the record it was myself, Rory and colman and Isabelle who were all due to fly to Ireland tomorrow! Hard to imagine it now!

    1. Thanks! The change of scene was really nice. And thanks for clarifying the original vacation plans, I had some pieces out of order there!

  2. And how nice to go swimming! Must have felt liberating if quite fresh too! And how funny that John is now the shortest of the three!

  3. That was a lovely weekend away…they look so enchanting ..I’m sure ye felt great after the trip. Nice to have celebrated your Father’s Day at home too worth your boys. X

  4. Great photos of your lovely weekend away😎 your bird watching looks really interesting too,nice to have Liam & Miles with you John, to celebrate Father’s Day.

  5. Pingback: Scary (and) pretty | Cindy and the Kennymen

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