Category: Excursions

Weekend Recap (07/11-07/12)

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Saturday (07/11) we ate homemade breakfast burritos I had prepped on Friday before heading to the arboretum.

We arrived just after they opened at 7 am. The plan was to take advantage of the relatively cool weather and get a few hours of bird watching in before we had to get home to prepare to drive out to my parents house. Well, the mosquitos had other ideas so we mostly drove around the grounds, although we did stop by the visitor center to look at the flowers.

We made a quick stop at Walmart before heading home where I spent two hours on the patio reading a book before it got too hot and humid for comfort.

We left the house around 1 pm so we could get to my parents around 2 pm. We had some good food, helped my mom and brother with a few things, and left around 8:30 so we could be home by 9:30. I had a hard time sleeping which is typical anytime I socialize.

Sunday (07/12) we stopped at Old Time Pottery before heading out to the Bath & Body Works in Geneva to pick up an online order I had made on Thursday for this adorable light-up spooky kitty hand sanitizer holder.

It was sold out nearly everywhere else so I feel lucky I was able to grab one. I hate buying Halloween stuff in mid-summer though. Why can’t we live in the moment a little more? Call me crazy but didn’t stores wait until kids were back in school to start putting out the Halloween stuff back when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s? Now it’s out in early July. It’s very annoying. By the time any holiday arrives these days I’m burnt out on it because of this nonsense. But I digress…

After B&BW we went to the Barnes & Noble store in the same shopping center.

I love the smell of a bookstore; there is nothing like it.

I looked at their e-readers but they seem overpriced for what they do and seemed to operate slower than my very old Kindle.

I was also amazed by all the cool educational toys they had from stuff about bugs to things about our solar system. I would have loved so many of them if they had been available when I was a child.

We browsed the magazines last and this caught my eye…

Hmmm… that seems familiar. A little closer look…

Aha, I knew it was Robert Smith!

I was shocked to see that 2600 magazine is still being printed.

I used to think I was so cool reading that even though I never hacked a damn thing.

We were getting hungry so we headed home to eat the stromboli sandwiches and potato salad my mom sent home with us on Saturday. Then Joe washed both our cars while I attempted to install garden edging around the tree out front before giving up.

I got it because my next door neighbor put some around her tree and it looked really nice, but the soil was too hard and the plastic edging too flimsy. It just felt like more effort than I was willing to put in. Back to Walmart it goes!

And yes, I know that makes me a hypocrite after I said I was boycotting Walmart. I do admittedly buy things from there once in a blue moon if I can’t get in anywhere else, like the bike shorts I’ve been living in since my skin went all sensitive on me.

May 2026 Recap

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05/02-05/03 – Weekend Recap

05/05 (Tue)
Saw our first hummingbird of the year. Also ran errands on my own, and although it was nice to feel independent, I hated it as well. I’m spoiled by Joe doing all the driving and handling the cart when we go shopping.

05/07-05/10 – Extended Weekend Recap

05/14 (Thu)
Joe had the day off so we went to Elsen’s Hill in the morning to look for warblers. We did see a lot of bird activity, even though warblers weren’t part of it. We went to St. Charles later and hit up a few places and stopped at a Mexican place for lunch.

That afternoon we received an order of coffee syrups from Monin

05/16-05/17 – Weekend Recap

05/20 (Wed)
Finished setting up the patio by pulling weeds, planting zinnias and separating the area with Dollar Tree fencing, and adding solar lights.

05/23-05/24 – Extended Holiday Weekend Recap

05/28 (Thu)
On the way to Lincoln Marsh to do some birding we stopped at the county animal control to donate a big box of potty pads we still had in the garage. At this rate I don’t know when we’ll be getting another dog so we might as well donate them and make some room.

05/29 (Fri)
Recently got back into reading, and figured I would stop needing to recharge my phone so often if I used my Kindle instead. Except apparently my Kindle 3 will no longer accept books from Libby. This feels like an intentional move to force people into buying a new Kindle even though there’s nothing wrong with the one they already have.

05/30-05/31 – Weekend Recap

Notable Media This Month:

DTF St. Louis – Starring Jason Bateman and David Harbour, this was a strange, yet intriguing, show. Don’t let the homophobes in the IMDb reviews dissuade you from checking it out.

Big Mistakes – I never got into Schitt’s Creek, but after seeing Dan Levy’s performance in this show, I think I might give it another try.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die – Heard about this one on an Instagram reel and was intrigued. It was so strange but kept our attention. I’m not sure I’ve seen a comedy starring Sam Rockwell that I didn’t like.

The Killer’s Game – My brother mentioned this one so I borrowed it from the library. There is a seriously unhinged line in the movie that made me laugh so hard. Starring two Guardians of the Galaxy alum, it was an entertaining ride.

Shrink – This is an older show about a guy trying to make it as a psychiatrist and much like other hidden gems, only lasted one season. We blew through it quickly and I wish there had been more.

Weekend Recap 05/30-05/31

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Saturday (05/30) we stopped at the Wheaton French Market. We were on a mission to get a tasty breakfast and noticed there were even more booths than last year. We did a loop to check all the booths before settling on the ones we wanted to try this time (there were too many possibilities to try them all).

First we got some homemade bakery treats – an oatmeal cream pie, strawberry poptart, and “bigass” cookie (with chocolate chips and Biscoff pieces). I should have gotten the name of the business because I want to avoid it moving forward. I think I’d recognize it when I see it, though, because it seems like the booths remain in the same location from one week to the next. For the price I was expecting to like everything more. It wasn’t bad, just not impressive. The oatmeal cream pie had too much cinnamon and the cookie didn’t have enough flavor. I only had a small bite of the poptart since I’m not a fan of those in general.

Next to that booth was one serving coffee so Joe got a vanilla latte. That one was a bit lackluster too.

Finally, we got a breakfast crepe from a third booth. It tasted ok but was really hard to eat in the container provided so we’d skip that one too. 0/3 I guess, but at least the people-watching was top notch!

We headed to the arboretum next and spent a few hours there before it was lunch time. We had to get Minnie Bird because those pimento cheese wraps are way too good. I didn’t bother getting a dirty soda this time because they sound better in theory than in reality. The soda always tastes kinda flat to me.

Sunday (05/31) the patio umbrella I ordered was delivered. I decided to go with a royal blue instead of yellow after all and I’m glad I did. It matches our existing chairs pretty closely so it looks like a set now.

I love how easy it is to open and close compared to the old umbrella. It’s unfortunate the old one couldn’t last through Pride month though.

I like imagining the rainbow print triggering homophobes which makes me smile.

Weekend Recap 05/16-05/17

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Saturday (05/16) we stopped at Burger King to grab some breakfast on our way to Fullersburg Woods to see what warblers we could spot. Not as many as I had hoped, unfortunately, but I did add two to my life list – the Magnolia Warbler and Blackpoll Warbler!

A little rant: why is it so hard to find a quick breakfast at 7 am? Taco Bell and Wendy’s stopped serving breakfast in our area, I’m trying not to patronize McDonald’s as much, and Tropical Smoothie Cafe opens too late. Even most of the gas stations have little to no breakfast sandwiches ready in the mornings and I don’t like starting the day eating pastries because I need the protein to not only feel full but to avoid a low blood sugar crash later. I guess I need to start making breakfast burritos again.

On the way home we stopped at Rainbow Cone for a sweet treat. I got a small cone with the traditional flavors and Joe got an espresso milk shake. The dumpster enclosure at the back of the building is painted to match the Rainbow Cone colors which made me laugh.

Afterwards we stopped at Murphy’s Farm to pick up flowers for the patio. We got vicas, some purple flowers I forgot the name of, and red New Guinea Impatiens.

Sunday (05/17) morning we did a little birding at Churchill Woods and picked up some Coleus at Hacker’s Garden Center.

In the afternoon we met up with Joe’s daughter at Sagawau Environmental Learning Center in Lemont to watch them trap and band birds. It was quite the learning experience and really cool to see birds up close and personal even if they mostly caught orioles.

Baltimore Orioles aren’t as large as they seem from a distance.

Afterwards we all went to Matt’s BBQ in Lemont for a delicious lunch. No pics, though, but it was delicious. The pork belly burnt ends and Texas Twinkie in particular were phenomenal.

Extended Weekend Recap 05/07-05/10

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Every year on the anniversary of Wookie’s passing Joe takes the day off work and we go birding because that’s what we did after leaving the vet without her on that horrible day. We couldn’t bare to go home to an empty house so we went to our happy place, the arboretum. This year because it landed on a Thursday Joe took Friday off too.

Since Thursday (05/07) was rather cold, we opted to do a Costco run around 11 am thinking it would be nice and calm. Boy were we wrong! It was pretty crowded, but we got what we came for and then stopped in the food court on the way out to get hot dogs. They also added chicken fingers to their menu and a caramel churro sundae so we decided to try those too. The chicken fingers were pretty good, as was the very generous container of dipping sauce that seemed like a cross between Raising Cane’s and Chick-fil-a sauce.

That sundae, though, wow!

I’m not big on churros or caramel but it was delicious.

Later in the afternoon we ran out to a nearby park to do a little birding before heading back home to wait for the Xfinity tech to work on the ongoing upload issues we’ve been having.

Friday (05/08) we decided to check out the DuPage Wildlife Conservation Center, formerly known as Willowbrook Wildlife Center. The new building is huge and you can peek in on some of the animal rehabilitation going on in there, including surgery, if you’re lucky. I miss when they had different birds, reptiles, and amphibians on display. Now it’s just very cold and lifeless with some educational materials which is rather sad. Sure, the former building was small and old but this big building doesn’t offer much to visitors and despite following them on Facebook I didn’t even know it finally opened in January after years of being under construction because they didn’t post about it.

The trail behind the building is still there but gone are the birds, foxes, and mammals that used to be on display. And I get it – that was probably stressful for them, so they have been moved away from the public eye. But did they have to take out the butterfly garden and koi pond too? The trail still offers something worth exploring, and it’s quiet back there, but I miss the old site.

Oh, and inside the building by the restrooms there is a box with a suggested donation of $5 per person. I thought about it while using the bathroom and decided against it since my property taxes, which have now exceeded $8000 annually, paid for that entire site. If we didn’t live in the same county then I would have left a donation.

Saturday (05/09) we finally visited Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary during spring migration!

We wanted to go during the week but the weather wasn’t cooperating. The nice thing about going into the city on the weekend is traffic is better.

We arrived at 6 am and headed to the pier by Montrose Beach first to see if we could spot a Piping Plover since they’re back for the season. To our delight, there was one running around the beach within camera range. They are so small and cute!

The lack of bands suggest she’s new to the area.

We could see a row of people on the opposite end of the cordoned off area probably trying to get a glimpse of the plovers as well but based on the fact that no one was taking any photos I don’t think they were in sight for them so we didn’t go over to that area. (We did end up over there right before we left the sanctuary a few hours later though to look for the burrowing owl that has been spotted in the grassy hill nearby but didn’t see it).

Once we headed into the sanctuary we could see it was busy. It only got more crowded as the morning went on! That being said, everyone was very quiet and respectful. We even had a nice conversation with one of our fellow birders while watching various warblers flit around the tree canopy by the magic hedge area.

Had we visited on a weekday, our next stop would have been the zoo, but we decided to skip it. We knew it would be packed on a Saturday, especially with how beautiful the weather was.

We stopped at Trailside Museum for a short walk around the nature center building to look at the bird feeders and see if there were any nearby places to grab lunch that weren’t as chaotic as the Cava I had bookmarked, but we didn’t find anything so we headed home where I made some crispy tacos instead.

Montrose Point Statistics

Photos taken: 662
Photos immediately deleted: 416
Lifers: 3 (piping plover, backburnian warbler, dunlin)

Species seen, with photos (12)
American redstart
Black and white warbler
Blackburnian warbler
Black-capped chickadee
Black-throated green warbler
Blue-gray gnatcatcher
Common Grackle
Dunlin
Piping Plover
Ruby crowned kinglet
Warbling vireo
White-crowed sparrow
Yellow-rumped warbler

Without photos (8)
American goldfinch
American robin
Common Yellowthroat
Gulls
Flycatcher – exact unknown (technically got very bad photos)
Killdeer
Northern cardinal
Palm warbler
Spotted sandpiper
Yellow Warbler

Dis-honorable mentions, just because I dislike these birds (2)
Canada goose
Red-winged blackbird

Sunday (05/10) after grabbing groceries from Aldi we stopped at ActiviTea so I could try their cookie butter iced latte.

I have to say, wasn’t impressed. 7 Brew is much better, and the cost is pretty comparable.

Update: I later learned ActiviTea uses Monin syrups. 7 Brew uses a combination of Torani syrups to achieve the cookie butter flavor, which I wish I had known before ordering the cookie butter from Monin because it sucks. I usually like all the flavors I order from them but that one is awful.

Later in the day we went to Lincoln Marsh.