Busse Forest West

 Good morning,

Here we are in Des Plaines, Illinois, on the way to a meeting and what do we see along the roadway, but a caboose.  I immediately thought of another blogger who just had a caboose ride and posted great train images on his blog.  So, the image above and the following image were taken with Grenville of Frog and PenguINN in mind.  Grenville and Beatrice have had some wonderful images of their travels in Maine on their blog.

 As we neared our meeting site, a Metra train blocked the intersection so that we could enjoy looking at it for three or four minutes.  ;)

The birds were also enjoying the view while I played with my new camera.

Finally, we got to our meeting, got through our meeting, and were free to go in search of some pictures on this beautiful Fall day.  

On the way from our hotel in Schaumburg to Des Plaines, we had passed the entrance to Busse Forest and Ned Brown Meadow so we headed back in that direction.

It was late afternoon by the time we got there, but we took advantage of the short amount of time that we had.  My Honey had brought his Canon 7D, but I left my big Canon (50D) at home so that I could try out my new Canon PowerShot SX210IS with the 14x zoom.  What I love about this new little baby camera is that it is powerful, yet small enough to fit into my pocket.

 As soon as we pulled in we saw this old hornet's nest. I doubt I would have been comfortable getting this close while it was inhabited.

There were quite a few people using the park.  This is a bike path that was also being used by people on roller blades.

 At the entrance to the park, the bike path parallels the road.  We started to walk down this way to take pictures of a bridge over Salt Creek, but the mosquitoes were so bad we decided to head back the other way.

 I had so much fun working with my new camera.

 These pictures were taken from 20 to 25 yards away, zoomed and cropped.

 This guy was so busy burying nuts he didn't care that I was snapping pictures.

I'm happy with the way this shot with the back light came out.

 This twisted tree trunk is unique.  Is this the normal way this tree grows?  

 Have you ever worked very hard to set up a camera shot?  If you look closely, you'll see there are Canada Geese over there on the island in the middle of the traffic turn-around.

 My Honey and I were walking smoothly not to disturb the geese, but at a steady pace to move to where there would be no cars in the picture when the black car pulled in and parked exactly where we were going to shoot.  It happens.  ;)  It's still a very nice picture.

 We moved down to the other side of the parking lot to Salt Creek.  The park would close at dusk and the light was fading fast.

 This family had arrived for a few last minutes of fishing before the light disappeared. 

 Across the water were more Canada Geese making plenty of noise.

This is the last shot before we saw the police were ready to close the gates to the park.  Perhaps we'll be able to return to take more pictures another day.  This place is just gorgeous just a few miles from the City of Chicago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 SPIDER SPINCAST 5BB KIDS FISHING REEL MODEL STSC550 NEW

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~