On a gloomy, December day, when “the sky won’t snow and the sun won’t shine,” it’s tempting to stay curled up somewhere warm, inside, by a fire. Or to busy myself with the million things I have to do before the holidays. It’s easy to find excuses not to take a walk in the woods when it’s cold, wet, and dreary.
 
But those are often the days when I need it most, when the ordinary world is wearisome and business becomes busyness. I bundle up and go.
 

In order to get to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore from my home in Milwaukee, I have to go through all of Chicago, with its sprawling suburbs and its densely packed downtown, spiked with skyscrapers, and then across the skyway. The view from the skyway is of a vast apocalyptic landscape seething with active refineries, steel mills, and inactive, abandoned industrial sites. Past the last steel mill I begin to see woodlands and wetlands instead of enormous factory sheds, steel armatures, and tall smokestacks. It is worth the effort.

I've been to the dunes many times, but always to lie on the beach in warm weather. Last weekend could have been more of the same, but it was freezing! So, instead of sticking to the beach I explored one of the inland trails where it was out of the wind and much warmer. And what a lovely discovery! The Cowles Bog trail led me through some swamplands, over oak covered hills, and past glacial kettle ponds.