An Hour a Day

Jeff and I often wonder why we live in such an unsightly area as the Calumet Region. As we were driving through Tennessee a few weeks ago, I asked again, "Why don't we live in a prettier area?" Although it is fun to be 20 minutes from Chicago, it can sometimes be depressing to drive north down Calumet Avenue in Hammond, or east down Ridge Road toward Gary and see so much metropolitan blight and older buildings and abandoned businesses and untended landscapes.

One of the very fun things about living as an adult in the region where I grew up is to discover natural and outdoor settings that I never knew about when I was a child. There are so many wildlife spaces, you wouldn't expect it! The Calumet Region is known for being very populated with people and quite polluted with oil and steel industry, but it is also known for protected prairie and wetland and wildlife areas which have an incredible diversity of plant and animal species. My father in law is taking a birding class and is learning that bird watching in this area is an absolute thrill for bird enthusiasts because of our special spot next to the big lake on the migratory path. The Dunes Lakeshore, Indiana's shoreline on Lake Michigan, is some of the best beach and dunelands that can be found anywhere. There are beautiful bike trails and big plans for a 50 mile span of connecting bike trails

Our good friends Matt and Linnay have been actively attempting for the last year or two to have their sons spend time outdoors for a minimum of one hour a day, and I have always thought highly of that goal. I'm not a very good outdoor goer when it is cold, but since last week, we've started to try the same ourselves. And there are so many different places to explore for a few minutes or stay longer to set up the picnic basket and blanket! Jeff and I have made an effort to get to know our playgrounds and county parks here in Lake County Indiana, but we are right on the border of Cook County Illinois which has quite an extensive forest preserve district. Some of the local sites we have visited are promoting the Leave No Child Inside initiative to help adults get their kids outdoors more in a generation when most kids do not get unsupervised outdoor playtime anymore, and viewing a tv or computer screen indoors is the preferred "safe" educational activity for kids and their parents.

Right next door to the Hammond Montessori Schoolhouse on Hohman is Harrison Park which has a huge grassy and shady space for running and romping and three play structures. Douwe has been begging to go there every day and is making sure to announce to anyone who will listen: "The park by my school has three playgrounds!" We've gone a few times right at noontime when the full day students are on the grounds playing for their lunch break. Douwe loves running around with the crowds of older kids and trying to do the tricks they do.

We've been to Wicker Park in Highland for a few visits already this spring, which is an absolutely wonderful place to play and picnic. There are always other children here, so Douwe likes that.

Our family lives about 3 blocks from the Little Calumet River at Hohman Avenue, which has a high grassy levee on the Hammond side. We stopped there on the way home from a bike ride and walked along the river for about a quarter mile. The houses across the river were recently demolished to make room for the Levee project that is steadily progressing west to the Illinois state line.
During our walk into the woods, Douwe kept asking "how do we get out?" He was scared of the burrs that stick to pant cuffs after I pointed them out and said, don't step on them! We found an animal skull, some feathery parts of a dead bird, saw geese and ducks, and many deep burrows. It reminded me of one of my favorite outdoor adventures, hiking along the same river with my sisters at its banks in South Holland, right near Veterans Park. It always felt a little bit wild and risky, because you don't see many houses or people once you get right up to the riverbanks in some of these spots. We would pretend we were lost in the wilderness. So fun.

This Sunday when we visited family in Milwaukee, we took a little hike along that city's undeveloped riverbanks and found a father and his boys throwing rock bombs into the water and building a little fire. Douwe had a great time looking for sticks and rocks to toss in.

Today I went to my childhood hometown, South Holland to visit the Sand Ridge Nature Center with Douwe. That town is only a few minutes away from where I live now. The indoor facility, belonging to the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, has been rebuilt since I was a kid, and it is beautifully set up with exhibits and animals and classrooms and a young children's corner. Douwe played for about two hours in the children's corner, which was fine because the temperature was dropping today and it was a little chilly for a longer hike. There is an extensive calendar of events for children and families on all sorts of topics, so hopefully we'll be here a few times this summer! I ran into a family who found all sorts of living and dead animals on their walk today. I also took about 5 brochures which will lead us to many more Cook County and Chicago Wilderness destinations!

Then we had our picnic lunch in Egan Park in Cal City, which is a small woodsy play spot just southeast of Wentworth and River Oaks Drive. It has a huge sandbox, so Douwe played around the sandbox there for a while.

Hopefully this blog will have many accounts of our family's outdoor adventures for spring and summer 2010! Our natural world is so beautiful, even in The Region!