You can take the girl out of the city...

     The lonely stretch above is Miller Road, just east of 155 and west of the Prairie Creek in Hopedale Township, about 160 miles southwest of Chicago.
     We stopped in that unlikely spot because, in the fields beyond, a variety of pieces of big equipment were doing some harvesting that I was interested in observing for a story I'm working on, one you can expect in a couple weeks. 

      In the half hour we lingered there, one car, maybe two came by.
     We did have a good laugh. As we walked away from the car, the Ford Focus in the photo above, toward the muddy field, there was a distinctive click.
     "I locked my car and put on my flashers," marveled Ashlee Rezin, the Sun-Times photo editor, who was driving. "Could I be more of a city girl? I am a through and through city girl." 

     That happened several times, frequently enough that a local or two would remark on it. We don't lock our cars here. Old habits...
     Later we grabbed lunch in Morton, "The Pumpkin Capital of the World" and sampled their pumpkin-flavored ice cream, pumpkin spiked chili, plus pumpkin cake pops. When I called the village hall, an employee warned me that with the Pumpkin Festival going full swing, parking might be a problem.
     "Oh, I imagine we'll manage," I said. We did manage. Parking was not a problem.

     I hadn't been out for a story for two months, since I had my rotator cuff repaired, and it felt really good to hit the road, eyeball a bit of this beautiful state, and of course talk and talk and talk with Ashlee, who I hadn't seen for a while. I left the house shortly before 7 a.m. and returned shortly after 7 p.m. and felt it was a day very well spent.