Metal angel sculptures line pathways in wildflower choked Northerly Island, previous home of Meigs Field. The old runway, now a mowed grassy strip, is still visible in the background.

During my recent trip to Chicago, I took an afternoon stroll around Northerly Island, located just behind the downtown Museum Campus on the lakefront. This narrow peninsula was once home to Meigs Field, a tiny airport that opened on December 10, 1948 and by 1955 was the busiest single-strip airfield in the country. In its latter years, the airfield served mostly private planes, but I have a vivid recollection of landing at Meigs in a prop engine puddle-jumper many years ago, so commercial airlines must have used the field at one time. Landing and taking off from Meigs Field was a scary proposition. The runway was short and dead-ended into Lake Michigan; my first landing was my last – purposely. I was certain my plane was going into the drink.

In 1994, Chicago’s Mayor Daley announced plans to close the airport and build a park in its place. Nine years of legal battles ensued until, in a controversial move on March 30, 2003, the Mayor ordered private crews to destroy the runway in the middle of the night, bulldozing large X-shaped gouges into the runway surface. Daley subsequently excused his actions, insisting that post-9/11 risks of terrorist-controlled aircraft attacking the downtown waterfront necessitated the closing of Meigs Field.

Closeup of sculpture on Northerly Island

These days, Northerly Island is strewn with wildflowers. Metallic angel sculptures rise amidst blossoms, pointing the way down narrow asphalt paths winding between the Adler Planetarium and the old air tower. Butterflies drift from bloom to bloom and songbirds warble melodies from nests secreted in tall grasses. Eerily, concrete runway markers – the only remnant of the once busy airfield – poke their heads above thick vegetation growing on the old landing strip. Walking through this idyllic park, it is hard to imagine that it may soon undergo yet another radical transformation. Read the rest of this entry »

Plunging an amazing 411 feet, Upper Whitewater Falls in southwest North Carolina is the highest waterfall west of the Rockies. Located in a fairly rugged, little-visited area, the upper falls are easily accessible via a short paved path bordered by wildflowers, moss-covered boulders, and dense forest.

Upper Whitewater Falls in Sapphire, North Carolina

Tiny wildflowers border the path through dense forest

More wildflowers

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Illinois winters are brutal, but summer brings a special kind of beauty to the banks of the Kankakee River:

Wildflowers are everywhere

Sunset on the Kankakee River

Were it not for the fact that my family lives in Illinois I would never go there. I believe that every person, place and thing has a unique frequency. As we interact with other people, places and things these frequencies come into contact with each other. Sometimes they resonate with one another and other times they are completely out-of-sync. In my case, my frequency is completely out-of-sync with the entire State of Illinois. The moment I enter Illinois my energy starts to ebb. I become more sedentary. I gain weight. It’s as if a heavy, dark blanket has been thrown over my head. This is always such a gradual process that I’m usually not aware it’s happening – at least not until I leave the State, and then I tend to immediately forget it ever happened. This time was no different. I knew I wasn’t feeling one hundred percent when I hit the road this morning but I had no idea what was wrong until I crossed the State line into Indiana. Within a few miles my head and neck stopped hurting and I felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

Purple wildflowers in rural Illinois

If this was an occasional occurrence I would credit it to coincidence but it happens to me every single time I visit. It’s a shame, really, because Illinois has its own special beauty: mile after mile of verdant farmland; country roads lined with spectacular wildflowers, like these purple daisies I discovered on a walk one day last week; clean rivers that attract boaters and fishermen; birds and wildlife; virgin prairies that Read the rest of this entry »