Lunch Break Adventure!

During the summers, my job is super slow. So slow that I often take 2 hour lunches. The town I work in is famous for its' parks, so I sometimes take advantage of my time by checking them out.

Elgin Heritage Park was one of the first I visited, and was so cool I had to go back, and bring my camera. It was one of the things that led to the idea for this blog.

I stumbled across the park by accident-- I drove past the parking lot a few times, and one day decided it looked like as good a place as any to eat my peanut butter sandwich :) After lunch, I decided to take a bit of a walk... I was about eight months pregnant at the time and took any opportunity for exercise, to help minimize the incredibly frustrating swelling of my ankles I experienced. I found a trail...



wandered around a corner, admiring this neat little marsh...



and came across this view:



Gorgeous! An adorable, tiny marina on the river.



But it didn't end there... the park follows the river for a little ways...





And then splits off. One way continues along the river, the other way...



WOW.



A whole field of cattails... beautiful.



After passing across the bridge through the cattails, the trail turns another corner, and this is what you see:



What the heck is THAT you ask??



It's an owl house :) Apparently, barn owls are big in the area, but places for them to roost are growing thin. So the parks build these owl houses to give them homes. Really neat.

The trail winds back around on itself, and ends at the parking lot again-- the perfect walk for 8 months pregnant :D

I loved it, I've gone back several times, and I hope to go back later in the year-- it'll be interesting to watch how the changing of the seasons affects the trees and the river. Hopefully you enjoyed it too-- and I hope to share more of my lunch break adventures in the future!