It’s Thursday morning and we’re in Starved Rock State Park in the fine state of Illinois.
The park is beautiful. It rose up surprisingly from the flat fertile land around I80, or rather was cut from it by the Illinois river. Our campsite is decidedly wooded, abosultely thick with quaking aspen and black oak (OK so you got me – learning how to identify tree types is one of those “I should know how to do this” things for me). I picked this place for the simple reason that it was a State Park near the interstate and got lucky. I also scheduled a “zero day” here; a day of no-driving, exploring, napping, and did I mention no driving? The plan is to spend our free-day doing some nice light hiking around the river canyons and bluff areas. Currently, however, the family-except-for-me has decided to go back to sleep and catch some extra Zs on the day. This is fine with me, actually; it’s what these days are for.
In fact it may be needed for Cohen. Poor little guy, for the past two days he’s been running and off-and-on fever of around 100°. Sharaun and I have both attributed this to teething, as he’s got the telltale runny nose and ear-pulling to boot. He’s also got no other cold symptoms, no cough no congestion no anything. Just yesterday, though, he didn’t seem to want to take his afternoon nap and he became pretty irritable. This morning he woke up early with tears and then wanted to go back down almost right after breakfast. Like I said, this is more than OK with me… I’m enjoying the solitude and quiet time to write and do nothing, but, man, I hope little-guy isn’t getting sick.
Sharaun, again, reassures me – if Cohen does appear to be sick we just stop by a walk-in clinic in whatever state we might be in that day and get him checked out. We’re in America, after all, where the healthcare system is internationally lauded, right? But yes she’s right; even a little sickness wouldn’t do much to stop this rig from rolling right along (unless, of course, the lord-captain and commander were to come down with a case of the breakbone or some other such malady… this vessel would surely founder absent his stern but fair leadership). So this extra early nap is gravy in my mind. Let the boy sleep and regain some stamina points; with luck he’ll be up for the bike riding and easy-hiking we have in mind for later today.
Well, as long as these clouds clear, of course. I mean, it wouldn’t be a day-off on our trip if the forecast didn’t call for cloudy skies and scattered thunderstorms. Yesterday: sunny; tomorrow: sunny; today: rain. It’s fitting, I suppose. I still believe the clouds will lift and we’ll have some nice weather to checkout the surroundings.
Until later then. Peace out.
Also written on this day...
- goodbye - 2010
- working? working. - 2009
- mondayfriday - 2008
- or write poetry - 2006
- judgement day - 2005