A little tour

Running is good for more than just exercise.  It also gives you time to think, to relieve stress, to lose yourself in your surroundings.  I took the opportunity to do this on many occasions while traveling back "home" for Finnley's second birthday.  In just over a week I logged about 18 miles on foot.  That amount of miles provides a lot of thinking and perspective finding moments.  My favorite morning was bright and not overly hot.  In this particular light of the early day, everything just looked prettier in that sleepy little town where my parents reside.  Of course in situations like this when you really want to have your camera with you to capture reality at its finest...you don't have it.  So, I made the decision to run back home faster than I had planned (just barely under a 10 minute mile pace, thankyouverymuch!), load up my gorgeous PJ-wearing, bed-headed toddler, and snag my camera to head back out by car to freeze some beauty "on film".  Here is a bit of what we saw on our little tour of rural Illinois...