I've explored a lot of Will County (and some of DuPage!) over the past few weeks. Lots of sparse prairie, lots of strange and odd sightings, almost like omens. Here are some of the places I've been. (thread)

To start, Morton Arboretum. This was one of the places I went early on in quarantine, after I got my camera and decided to start documenting things. @MortonArboretum always feels like a little magical pocket of nature that makes you feel like you're anywhere but Illinois.

I've been to Waterfall Glen a few times, too. Encompassing the wooded outskirts of Argonne National Laboratory, it's always interesting to go off trail (encouraged!) and explore: just don't try to climb the barbed wire fences. They have orienteering, which I'm definitely trying.

Look. Going off trail is fun, but right after took this picture with my hiking buddy-slash-sister, I almost lost my footing in the mud and slipped down a hill. Win some, lose some!

Another fun one -- @USDA's @MidewinNatTP. An hour and a half drive south from Chicago will take you to the only National Tallgrass Prairie east of the Mississippi, and has a herd of bison that hang out on thousands of acres. The prairie actually used to be owned by the Army...

...and was the site of the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant, where munitions (and TNT!) would be made. It's an EPA Superfund site, and absolutely wild because of the abandoned bunkers left behind throughout the site (one of which is open to visitors).

Lots of muddy hiking here. We climbed to the top of one of the bunkers, and I guess I'm not as nimble as I used to be, because I almost wiped out in the mud coming down here, too.

Illinois is remarkable sometimes, because it's very good at being filled with vast stretches of nothing, so much so that you just forget it's possible for there to be anything. Case in point: off the highway, across from Midewin and CenterPoint Intermodal Center, is a cemetery.

Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, to be exact. I've lived in Will County for twenty years, and never knew that there was a massive -- and I mean vast, endless -- veterans' cemetery so close.

Vast was the only way to describe it. Like when you're driving down state, and all you can see are fields and clouds for as far as you can see. That, but headstones, perfectly aligned, for ages.

It was so quiet, very still. The office was closed, and it was virtually empty. Some wreaths and bouquets were scattered around, and there were a few obvious recent burials, but it just seemed so... devoid of life. We were the only living things there.

I'll update this thread as I export more pictures and drive more places — this is more of a personal project for me, to document the places I've explored and the things I've done while isolated from everyone but my immediate family. It seems pertinent.

-30- (for now)