The stereotypical Thanksgiving celebration in America involves people—a lot of people. That’s why Thanksgiving weekend is the busiest travel season of the year—even more so than Christmas! So the vintage scene includes a large table overflowing with food with people seated all around.
Through the years, many of our Thanksgiving celebrations have been like that. We’ve had family at our home crammed around the table, or we went to a relative’s home and squeezed around theirs.
But not this year.
For a variety of reasons, the holiday found my bride and I alone, and we would’ve been seated at a very empty table. So, we took advantage of the situation and headed out of town Wednesday for an overnight getaway to a northwest Chicago suburb.
There’s something about just leaving town—even for 36 hours—that is refreshing. I recently listened to a pastor express the same idea. He recounted that he and his wife do that regularly, sometimes just for a day, often for an overnight. It feels like weight gradually rolls off the shoulders with each mile.
In planning this trip, one thing we wanted to do, weather permitting, was go on a hike. We hadn’t been anywhere to hike together in a long time, and we both felt the itch.
After checking out of the hotel on Thanksgiving day, we headed to a park neither of us had ever been to or even heard of before—Moraine Hills State Park in McHenry, Illinois. The description of the park, both on my AllTrails app and Illinois DNR site, sounded like an interesting place offering long enough hiking trails to occupy most of the afternoon.
Moraine Hills State Park located in McHenry, Illinois, offers a tapestry of mosaic marshes, lakes, prairies, bogs, wooded hills and streams that are perfect for hikers, skiers and cyclists.
It didn’t disappoint!
Admittedly, this isn’t the prettiest time of year to hike. Other than brown, dead leaves clinging to gnarly oaks, the trees were bare. The prairie grass had long turned pale amber. The milkweed and cattails surrounding the bogs and marshes still stood tall, but lost the vibrant color of summer, much of it had gone to seed.
I honestly didn’t head to the park expecting to be impressed. The forest preserves in the Chicago area offer nice, natural respite from the concrete and steel, ‘tis true, but this time of year, everything’s just blah. Really, we just wanted to be outside for a hike, as opposed to a mere walk through the neighborhood.
We were pleasantly surprised!
As we drove the mile from the park entrance to a trailhead, I found myself expressing thanks for finding such an interesting place. There was so much variety in the landscape I could tell the hike would be worthwhile.
The first mile took us through some woods, into a prairie, and along a wide marsh. Approaching the marsh, we could see a small flock of birds about 100 yards or so from the trail, but couldn’t quite make out what they were. Herons of some kind maybe?
A little further we discovered scores more! We searched our phones for some look-alikes, trying to make a definite identification, but weren’t having much success.
A middle-aged lady and her daughter(?) approached from the other direction—a couple of the very few people we encountered in the park that day (another thing to be thankful for!). I guessed they were locals, given the holiday and all, so I stopped them, asked if they were from the area (they were), and did they know what kind of birds those were?
They both looked out over the marsh and seemingly just then noticed the scores of birds. “Hmm,” the mom said, “I don’t. That’s a good question….” The indifference and lack of curiosity surprised me.
Ours never dissipated. Before long, we were out of sight of the flock, but not out of earshot. Often over the next hour, we could hear them squawking at one another, sometimes rather loudly as if a full-on war had broken out! Eventually, we came upon a park informational sign that answered our question: sandhill cranes.
They were but one variety of birds we came across.
Swimming in a small channel feeding a larger pond were some beautiful mallards. Speaking of beautiful, in the pond itself, several majestic white swans glided through the water occasionally plunging their heads under the surface looking for their Thanksgiving dinner.
We didn’t see them, but several tall, dead trees were pock-marked from woodpeckers foraging for dinner. And at an overlook near the end of our day’s hike, we could see off in the distance a 50-foot pole with a large platform on the top. A sign informed us it was for ospreys to build their nest in an effort to restore the bird’s population in the region.
One thing that’s always fascinated me about birds is the sheer variety!
On day five of creation, God said:
“Let the birds fly above the earth across the face of the expanse of the heavens…. So God created…every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.” [Genesis 1:20-21].
You know, God could have just made “bird”—say, sparrow. And every bird on the planet would be a brown-tan-gray little sparrow. But He didn’t. He created such a wide variety of birds that today there are about 10,000 species of birds worldwide!
One of the results of such variety, if we take the time to notice, is awe at the wonder, beauty, and diversity of God’s handiwork.
The same could be said for the variety of flora.
I mentioned the cattails, milkweed, and oaks, but there is so much more even in this little patch of a park in northeastern Illinois! I wish I were better at identifying the different kinds of trees. Oaks, maples, willow, and pine are easy to spot, but there are so many more!
And there we came across so many kinds of grasses and “weeds” and flowers that had long lost their blooms. Even in this picture of death, a few colorful highlights dotted the landscape. Yet the scene brought to life some sober reminders from the Bible:
My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass. – Psalm 102:11
“All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls….” – 1 Peter 1:24
I found myself grateful that even at this stage of my brief life I have the strength, vitality, and interest to be out in the woods on Thanksgiving day!
And reflecting on what 1 Peter 1:25 says (after reminding me that I’m withering grass!), I found more cause to be grateful:
…but the word of the Lord remains forever.
I can be grateful for a faith that rests on God’s unfading, unfailing, unwithering Word!
On one hand, I surely missed the large family gathering—the kids, grandkids, in-laws, siblings, and those who’ve long withered away from this life. And yet in these hours of solitude in the park with just my life’s partner, I was reminded there is so much to be grateful for—far, far more than I usually take the time to notice.
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