A big pile of dog poop spilled over the yellow line of the loop trail Thursday morning as I stepped off at Vollmer Road Grove.
“Seriously, they couldn’t pick it up and take it a 100 yards to the trash?” I stewed. “What the hell is wrong with humans?”
No, I did not compare it to coyote scat. That pile was left by a dog squatting and dropping a load in the middle of the trail while walking with their human.
But on a crisp sunlit morning, I soon returned to inner calmness on my delayed First Day Hike at Vollmer Road Grove.
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Pat Flynn was state park superintendent at Blue Hills State Reservation in Massachusetts in 1992 when he had the idea for First Day Hikes, basically getting outside on New Year’s Day.
Flynn gave Sue Scheible the back story when she interviewed him in 2015 for The Patriot Ledger.
“I had an idea patterned after a February winter hike they had in Ohio, where I’m from and where I worked for the state parks,” he told her. “I had 12 staff members and I pitched it and asked if they would even come in on New Year’s Day if we did it, and 11 of the 12 said yes and I thought, ‘
We may be on to something here.’ We threw the first one and we had 360 folks and it has grown to as many as 1,200 to 1,500 people.”
Since then First Day Hikes have spread to all 50 states, including Illinois, under a nationwide initiative led by America’s State Parks.
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I applaud the idea, yet I’m prickly enough to think, “What’s the big deal? You should haul your arse outside every day, no, make that multiple times a day.”
But when my wife, Karyn Bowman, suggested we do a First Day Hike, I simply agreed. After 30 years together, some thoughts I keep in check.
However, there was a catch: It had to be somewhere with a paved trail. After we went on an anniversary trip in the summer of 2023, where we hiked/walked around Cincinnati and northern Kentucky, her Charcot foot (a rare ailment associated with diabetes) flared and she developed a sore that would not heal.
Last month it was doing well enough that she had surgery. Since then, it is strictly non-weight bearing, so she gets around via wheelchair.
On Wednesday, we chose Perry Farm, a prairie restoration by the Bourbonnais Township Park District, blocks from Olivet Nazarene University where the Bears held summer camp for 18 years.
As she settled into her wheelchair, the westerly winds nailed us and we knew the full loop of a couple miles was out. We did a quarter mile or so, before doing the smart thing and returning to the car. Know your limits. Though relatively short, she was outside for real for the first time since the surgery.
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On Thursday, I went for my delayed First Day Hikes.
I started with Vollmer Road Grove, a Forest Preserves of Cook County site. The loop trail, on the northeast corner of Cicero Avenue and Vollmer Road, is just east of Bartel Grassland, a more significant site biologically. But I prefer Vollmer Road because it is more important for human activity and it’s close to our church, Flossmoor Community.
The trail is heavily used and in a residential area, yet holds a high number of animals and birds.
I regularly walk a mile or two on the eastern side. Thursday I did the whole 3.9 miles.
On a nippy sunlit morning, I saw plenty of things. Canada geese flew around the nearby subdivisions. Blue jays squawked in the woods. Soon I saw five does, the four more another 50 yards on. I saw eight more deer, including a small buck. I also saw house sparrows, chickadees and a bunch of birds I couldn’t identify.
Despite listening for birds and taking photos, I finished in an hour and a half.
I felt marvelous.
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Then I added a mile hike at another favorite spot, Goodenow Grove Nature Preserve. We visited the Forest Preserves District of Will County site near Crete regularly when the the kids were little to use the great sledding hill.
Goodenow has a mix of trails. I hiked in on the paved Plum Creek Greenway Trail, then the gravel Scout Trail, then the dirt looped Oak Ridge Trail, where I proudly identified a shagbark hickory among the oaks. Late morning, there was less bird activity, but I picked up juncos, blue jays, nuthatches and small birds I couldn’t ID.
It was time.