Lake Michigan and Dragonflies

I guess it's a little obvious, but the bit of natural beauty in Evanston I seemed to have latched onto is Lake Michigan. As I was getting ready to leave Salt Lake I constantly bemoaned the fact that I'd be away from my beloved mountains for so long and more specifically, that I'd no longer be able to wake up in the morning to the ever changing grandeur of Mount Olympus outside my window.

Lake Michigan is about as far from being a mountain as you can get, but what I've observed of it so far...it's subtle to enormous changes in color and activity...

...and its ever present influence on climate and the local feeling of space...

...make it an ideal muse for my nature-craving soul.

There are numerous lakeside parks edging the shoreline from downtown Chicago north and as I've had a good bit of free time these last couple days I've taken advantage of the mild (if windy) weather to explore a few miles of walking/biking trails that connect these lakeside oases. Yesterday afternoon the wind was outrageous and the air was absolutely filled with gigantic irridescent dragonflies dodging and swooping in and out among invisible eddies of air...and apparently having a ball! In places there were congregations of so many I felt I had to do a good bit of dodging myself in order to avoid collisions on all sides! When I took this next photo I had no idea I'd accidentally captured one of them in the image...but I like seeing it there anyway.

A little further down there was a large flock of geese and seagulls enjoying the afternoon sun...or perhaps just taking a break from wrestling with 40 mile per hour gusts of wind!

There have already been at least a dozen times when I've found myself walking by the lake and the scene is so beautiful and different that I have to kick myself for leaving my camera at home. I would always have it with me except that I often have to carry so much around that any bit of weight I can take off my shoulders seems more important when I'm packing my daily load than the thought of perhaps getting to take a lovely picture...so the camera stays on the dresser.