On a search for cell service, I drove a few miles from camp and came across a forestry research station run by the University of Ilinois with a solid two bars of cell service. There, the forest manager, Chris Evans, graciously answered my spur of the moment questions about how climate change was affecting their forestry practices. He acknowledged that it was a source of much discussion, and that it was affecting some practices, such as the seeding of tree species into more northerly habitats. They manage several research forestry plots, where they study the effects of different practices such as controlled burning, thinning, and seeding

Pointing to a topo map of southern Illinois, he showed me the shallow bowl-shaped curve that marked the southern edge of the Ilinois glaciation, some 100,000 years ago. Above it, the land was flat, scoured by the immense ice sheet. Below the line, the land was rumpled in creases running east to west. He told me how this area was geologically ancient, having neither been covered by ice nor by the water of the inland sea. It’s possibly the most biologically diverse area of the midwest.

I left Chris with a new appreciation for this area, and returned to my search for my next camping site, when I discovered another perk: I could get internet by logging on as a guest of the University of Illinois. Since I had, in effect, just attended a lecture on the area’s geology and ecology, I decided it would be OK to do so.

I nearly forgot: before I left, he gave me a small book on summer wildflower hikes in southern Illinois, apologizing that he was out of the spring wildflower book. It wasn’t until I got back to camp that I realized he had written the book!