Day 14: Ice Cream and Mis-adventures

The day started with a chilly dampness at Devil's Lake. Thankfully though, it wasn't quite as cold as boundary waters and there was no rain like yesterday. We quickly broke camp and packed up the vans, eager for the heated interiors. Everyone felt excited but a little bit disappointed, because we had to leave Devil's Lake, leave the nature morning call from the birds, and leave the marvelous nature phenomenon, but we were also excited for our final destination Chicago.

We made a quick stop for gas and lunch and then made out first real stop of the day at Prairie Crossing. To everyone's surprise we got a pop quiz when we arrived at Prairie Crossing.  The quiz was just a few questions about the reading.  We were trying very hard to remember all the details from the assigned article.  Taking notes is really important.  This housing area was built with the idea of connecting a residential setting with land ethics.  It is a prime example of a T.O.D. or transit-oriented development.  What I mean is this development has a public train which travels into the city of Chicago.  Because of that fact, the need for a vehicle (or frequent vehicle use) is lessened by quite a bit.

We also learned about the water system in Prairie Crossing.  A barrel system to collect rain is used and put to use watering gardens and lawns.  They also have implemented some thing called a rain garden, which is also known in the landscape architecture community as a storm water catchment system.  How this is accomplished is an area is dug out and sometimes lined with clay.  Then the ditch is layered in sand and gravel.  The garden planted on top consists of hydric plants (think plants you'd find in a marshy area).  This gathers the water up and plants store it for quite a time.

A gazebo in the central area among houses

Overlooking Lake Aldo Leopald

Something people don't realize a lot of the time is that letting water flow directly into the open is not a good thing of the environment.  We did an exercise while at Prairie Crossing about learning where your water travels.  We started off with a raindrop at our house and had to figure out how it would travel in order to make its way down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.  On the way, water picks up oils and chemicals which is then dumped into the ocean.  Over time this has created a space in the gulf called the hypoxic zone, also known as the dead zone.  In this area the algae has taken over so much that nothing else can survive here.  This is due to the amounts of nitrogen pumped into the area, which covers nearly 8000 square miles.

After that somewhat of a Debby downer of a lesson, (sorry Deb, I know you don't like that phrase) we packed ourselves into the vans once more, ready to get to the place we were staying.  But first, a trip to the ice cream shop to celebrate Amy's birthday.  We had a somewhat mis-adventure in getting to Chicago, though we did get there eventually.  Our vans were separated multiple times, and by the end we had switched leaders several times as well.  We also couldn't figure out where we were supposed to park, so we ended up circling downtown Chicago for about 20 minutes.  But, no harm no foul, and we got there safely in the end.
Once we had dropped off our things and all cycled through the showers we set off for pizza.  The night ended with some people visiting Millennium Park and some of us chilling at the hostel.

The wienermobile.  A rare find on our way to Chicago.

These are your bloggers for the day, Amy and Nanqi, signing off.  I also want to give a shout out to Kyle for helping out with the pictures for this post.

And as Nanqi wants me to say: 祝你生日快乐艾米