Can 'ou canoe?
So, faced with a glorious sunny Saturday with absolutely nothing to do, we headed up to the canoe launch in Skokie and spent a lovely couple of hours paddling the North Shore Channel. We saw:

• turtles!


• giant goldfish lurking in the weeds


• red-bellied woodpeckers


• lots and lots of swallows, nesting under the bridges


• a hawk being run off by blackbirds


• a deer, walking noisily through the underbrush and vaguely startled by the weird creatures on the river


• 900 trillion cottonwood fluffies, all headed directly towards our faces

'Twas an excellent trip, and my arms and shoulders don't even hurt (yet). We even talked about getting a canoe of our own, something I've wanted to do for a long time. Hey, if you have a big truck, you might as well get a canoe to put on top!

Pics:


View northward, not far from the launch site at Oakton


Markie!


Turtle - painted, yes?


Snapping turtle on a slab of floating bark, very irritated that we saw through his "Pay no attention to me, I'm just a boring old rock" routine. Dark spot on shell is water Mark dribbled on him to wake him up.


Look at the tail on this guy!!
- posted by Diane @ 5:33 PM