July 26, 2004

Here fishy fishy fishy.

We went to Giant City State Park on a very cloudy Saturday this weekend. I did a sketch of a creek and read some of Thoreau's biography and took some photos of the translucent and phosphorescent fish darting around in the muddy creek (click the photo to see a larger image). It was astounding how much more quiet it is when one is actually in the middle of a state park in the National Forest, rather than merely right outside of it as I am when at home. The only thing I ever really hear here in addition to the natural sounds is the road noise of Illinois Route 51, which is just beyond the woods behind my apartment and which winds through the National Forest. On a windless, humid, cloudy, cool day in July, the stillness next to a creek settled amidst the stone bluffs of Giant City State Park can be quite eerie. And even more refreshing. It was so peaceful that I did not want to go for any kind of hike and get sweaty, lest my placidity be disturbed. The silence was eventually disturbed, not at all unpleasantly, by about fifty motocycles in a single file moto-march. I got out my camera and set the shutter speed to a very low setting and held still enough (I had tea, rather than coffee that afternoon) to snap this photo of some bikers at the end of the throng.

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