Reality as advertised

The weather was so nice a couple of weeks ago that we went out to the Morton Arboretum. The plan was to map out the maze garden. Do you know how hard that is? I mean mazes...who knew?

Instead we went out to "Big Rock." We had about a half mile hike to our destination. The sun was going down, it was getting cold...the kids were only wearing sweatshirts and weren't thrilled about the whole experience while we were walking through the slowly darkening woods. When we got there, however, it was hard to pull them away. Both were thrilled to have something to climb on. And there was mud. Who could ask for anything more?

Isn't it nice when you discover that your destination is exactly as advertised? Our destination was a big rock. It's not "giant rock," or "immense rock" (although in Starbucks world, this would actually be "Tall Rock.") It's a big rock at the edge of some old farm land.

Now to those of you who live in more geographically interesting climes, let me simply say this: in northern Illinois we don't get many rocks this big. Impressive? Maybe not. But it sure is interesting. It's also granite, which we also don't often get in these parts. Apparently Big Rock was dropped by a big glacier a long time ago.

Big deal? Well, when mapping out mazes is too difficult on a chilly day, discussing the evidence of ice age glaciation in our (figurative) backyard made for a good day of learning. Mission accomplished--even if it wasn't the mission we set out to do.

Big Mud too.