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, and didn't stop.
     We did have a good laugh. As we walked away from the car in the picture, that lonely speck, a blue Ford Focus, toward the muddy field, we heard a distinctive double beep.
     "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." 

     Old habits die hard. Though we were in depopulated and — it is assumed — relatively safe rural heartland, the idea of not taking prudent precautions, well, is not cast casually cast aside.

     That happened several times, frequently enough that a local remarked on it, also with a laugh. Unnecessary safety steps by anxious city slickers are funny. We don't lock our cars here. 
     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 had called the village hall the day before, getting the lay of the land, 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. If agrarians smile at our consciousness of criminality, we return the favor regarding what they think of as crowded. I thought back to the parking meters in Lemont accepting pennies last time I was there — albeit a while ago. 

     Let's just say parking was not a problem for a professional newspaper photographer. We managed.

     I hadn't been out for a story for two months, since I had my rotator cuff repaired in late July, and it felt really good to hit the road, eyeball an expanse of this beautiful state, talk to some hardworking, interesting people, including my colleague, who I hadn't seen for quite a while. We talked and talked and talked — I was hoarse when I got home. I left the house shortly before 7 a.m. and returned shortly after 7 p.m. It was a day very well spent.