On Sunday after leaving the Joliet Iron Works Historic Site, we planned to get takeout at a place in Joliet found via Google Maps, but after driving a few blocks, an old-fashioned technique for finding something to eat kicked in. That is, we saw it ourselves, and stopped on impulse.

Chicken-N-Spice. The place looked good, and it was: crispy fried chicken, warm mashed potatoes and gravy and tender biscuits. It was still a little cool to eat outside, so we found a spot to park and ate in the car.

After lunch we drove to the Kansas-shaped Hadley Valley Preserve, a unit of the Forest Preserve District of Will County.

Not really much of a valley, but the 685-acre preserve is a savanna, according to the FPD: a grassland with scattered tree growth and a mix of shrubs and wildflowers (in season).

Looks that way.

The trail makes an oval all the way around. We walked the whole thing counterclockwise, about 2.5 miles, with temps in the mid-50s and sunshine that wasn’t oppressive. Most of the mud had dried up by the time we walked it, unlike last week’s trail.

There were other walkers but also horses and their riders, about a dozen all together at one point or another on the trail.

Rolls of hay. Not as picturesque as possible, but the scattered rolls have some charm.Spring Creek runs from east to west through the length of the preserve.

The creek eventually connects with Hickory Creek in Joliet, and from there flows to the Des Plaines River and, of course, the far-off Gulf of Mexico eventually.

Saturday wasn’t exactly warm, but it was above freezing, sunny and mostly windless, which had been true for some days before that. So we figured forest preserve paths might be clear of ice at least. We were mostly right, but not completely.

That’s at the north entrance of Cricket Creek Forest Preserve in Addison, which generally follows Salt Creek as it meanders through DuPage County. The Salt Creek Trail runs through the 208-acre forest preserve.

The map depicts only the northern section of Cricket Creek. Further south are two more ponds, including one reserved for model boat sailing.

“The land was prairie until the late 1930s, when it started to transform into agricultural fields dotted with homes,” the DuPage County FPD says. “The Forest Preserve District acquired the first 40 acres in 1974 and made subsequent purchases through 2016, eventually transforming a flood-prone housing development into a beautiful forest preserve.”

The trails are crushed limestone.

The photos don’t really show it, but underfoot on the path was a crushed limestone slush, making for occasionally sicky mud. Better than ice, I’d say.

We made it most of the way around the pond, until we came to patches of unmelted snow and ice.


So we turned around and went to the other side of the pond, essentially doing a U-shape partly around the pond. Not the most idyllic walk, but walking ought to be an all-season activity, including winter — mild winter days, that is.

Two days after Christmas, it was warm enough to visit yet another forest preserve. This time of the year, any day above freezing without patches of ice counts as good enough for a walk. Snow and ice would fall a few days later.

We went to a relatively small patch of land in Kane County, hugging the west bank of the Fox River: Voyageur Landing.

Did roving Frenchmen pass this way in centuries past? Could be. In late December 2020, not many people at all were there, just us and a dogwalker and a jogger or two.
The preserve stretches to the north of the bridge that takes I-90 across the Fox.
From there you follow the river.
Through the wintertime forest.
She found a large number of places to sniff. Not so surprising even for an old dog.

The weekend turned out to be fairly mild, with temps over 40 during the days and no rain or snow. Time to find a new forest preserve and take a walk. We went to one to the west of us, but still in Cook County: Rolling Knolls.
That sounds like the name of an upscale housing development out toward the exurbs, with nary a hint of land contour. But actually the 55-acre forest preserve rolls along pretty well, with a variety of modest hills.

It used to be a standard golf course, but in 2017 the grounds were modified to accommodate frisbee golf. Or rather, disc golf. Just looking at a few sites devoted to the sport, it’s pretty clear that the disc golf writers anyway eschew any talk of frisbees, maybe regarding them as those Pluto platters that hippies used to toss around to amuse themselves.

Disc golf then. I don’t actually have an opinion on its nomenclature, so I’ll go along with writers such as this.

So we wandered into the course, passing by a couple of the holes.
There was a scattering of people playing, usually clusters of three or four young men, though two of the groups included a young woman. We managed to stay out of the way of play, but that wasn’t hard considering how few people were around. Before too long we found a dirt road.
It led south to a trail that winds around the edge of the preserve. Looks a little remote, but the sound of traffic in the distance was a constant.
Past the browns of the season.
Glad to see a flowing crick. Wasn’t sure its name.

Later, I found out: Poplar Creek. I’ve walked its banks before.