Nature Follows Us Everywhere We Go

Fall is a wonderful time for a road trip, and as September ended this year, we headed west for a 10-day trip, our car loaded up and our GPS ready. We had planned stops at areas where we had memories, family and friends and had a very full calendar. We may be older now, but we still have a sense of adventure, and an ambitious itinerary seemed plausible.

If you’ve taken a road trip anywhere lately you may be aware of all the road construction going on. Not only did we get caught a few times in standstill traffic on the highways, but our GPS occasionally took us out and about into rural areas and single-lane roads. Some of these roads had tractors and one had an Amish horse-drawn buggy.

We made stops in western Massachusetts, the Rochester area in New York, Cleveland, Ohio, and finally, Bloomington, Ind. where our grandson is a sophomore at Indiana University. We were just ahead of the grand foliage displays but were pleased to see as much color as we did. Birds were on the move, and at one point we saw what appeared to be a large flock of sandhill cranes flying over the farms along the road. 

We saw cornfield after cornfield but also hundreds of soybean fields. There were cows and steers here and there as well as oil derricks and tanks. If you wonder what your fellow Americans are doing, they are driving. Even in the smallest town areas the roads were busy, especially with trucks. America is on the move, every day and at all hours. Goods are being transported and every exit sprouts signs of gas stations and corporate hotel and restaurant chains. If you want junk food, just get on the highway. It proliferates there.

While in Bloomington we visited nature areas, both the Leonard Springs Nature Reserve and the Griffy Lake Nature Preserve. Both were large and beautiful, offering several trails that varied in difficulty so all could enjoy. I was encouraged to see how many people were taking advantage of these lovely natural areas. The geography is different than here, of course, but lovely. Full of hickory trees and black walnuts in one area as well as stands of horse chestnuts in another, the ground was littered with thousands of nuts and acorns. Squirrels were busy but so were the birds.

Blue jays are as common there as here, but the chickadees are the Carolina chickadees for the most part, their song and appearance just a bit different than what we are used to. There were signs of piliated woodpeckers though we failed to find one. We did, however, find an amazing number of red-headed woodpeckers, a bird I’ve seen rarely, so that was a lot of fun. They called and flew about, feeding high in the trees, occasionally landing in a sunny spot so the sun could illuminate their bright red heads.

Like here, Indiana has had enough rain to encourage the fungi to flourish, and we saw a lovely variety. Turkey tail fungus was especially easy to find, some as large as my hand. Probably the most notable difference of the midwestern forest is the size of the trees. It is not unusual to walk by dozens of trees with trunks two feet across, far too wide to wrap ones’ arms around. Some were even larger, and all were very tall, much taller than trees here on our windblown sandbar.

We headed to Marietta, Ohio when leaving Bloomington and enjoyed an early morning of birding on the lovely porch at the home of Julie Zickefoose, an accomplished and beloved nature writer, artist and birder extraordinaire. I met Julie many years ago and traveled with her on a birding trip to South Africa in 2015, took her birding here on the Cape after that, and we have stayed in touch.

The sun had just risen, and the migration was winding down, but we had an amazing morning of birding. Highlights included several Lincoln sparrows, gray-cheeked and Swainson’s thrushes, a late black-throated green warbler, and a Nashville warbler. All the while robins, jays, goldfinches, flickers, bluebirds, cedar waxwings and others took advantage of her amazing and huge native wildflower meadows and mature trees. Not only was the birding and company magical, but she made us a breakfast that couldn’t be beat and sent us on our way with happy bellies.

From Ohio we drove into Pennsylvania where the deer may outnumber the people. We saw deer everywhere but especially at our friends’ place out in the woods in Tunkhannock. On the way there we drove some very small, hilly and twisty roads where we surprised a doe and her fawn nonchalantly crossing an almost vertical road on a turnpin curve. We all survived the meeting, but I think all our hearts beat a little faster for the next half hour.

Being way out in the woods I saw more stars than I’ve seen in a while with just a sliver of moon in the inky black sky. Sunrise came with a misty shroud over the pond behind our friends’ home and the deer stood in the shadows watching me watch them.

There were many turkey vultures over the highway on our return trip and the usual gatherings of blackbirds. The foliage had brightened in the time we were away, and we sighed as each turn exposed even more loveliness.

No matter where we go, nature is there, even in parking lots. It is good to get off the highways now and then and travel the back roads. Just make sure you watch out for the deer, especially in the dusky hours of dawn and early evening. Rutting season has begun and they are on the move, even here on Cape Cod. And yes, it is good to be back home again.