An Afternoon at Fullersburg Woods

On Saturday, we were looking for something cool to do that met our somewhat restrictive budget: $0. We wanted to do something active and outdoors so we decided to spend the afternoon at Fullersburg Woods forest preserve in Oak Brook. Fullersburg has a great nature center, and lots of trails. It's pet friendly, so Levi could have come (if we had only known).

As we prepare for our hike, the kids scout the area for wild animals, good paths, and (in Tate's case) boxes of Nerds.

We stop by the nature center and wind up spending about half an hour there checking out all the cool stuff they have to offer, like a big bird nest:

There's lots of other really cool stuff at the Nature Center. They have some live critters: walking sticks, a salamander and fish. There's crafts, interactive exhibits and very helpful staff. Tate even found a huge fossil of a wooly mammoth who had lost his head.

They also let you "rent" stuff by giving them your car keys so we rented some extra binoculars, magnifiers, bug eye lenses, a bandana and a backpack so dad can carry everything. I love stopping every 30 seconds to take stuff out or put it away.

Just outside the door, we found out how big cottonwood trees can get.

First, we had to get our bearings. "Kids, find north."

Fullersburg Woods has great trails, but they are lined with poison ivy. In fact, there's poison ivy everywhere, so the first thing we did was have a lesson on identifying the nasty weed. Don't touch the poison ivy:


To me, there's nothing like the peace of hiking. Quiet, calm, nature. But if your kids like playing their Nintendo DS's in front of the TV while putting together a lego rocketship and fighting, you might want an "enhanced" hiking experience. No problem, Fullersburg Woods has you covered:

Sure enough, our attention-deprived boy found some tracks:

Even though it was barely 70° and nobody was thirsty, you can't pass up a water pump.

After all that pumping is was definitely time for a break.

Crossing Salt Creek, we found a mother duck and her ducklings.

Soon, we passed the Big Spooky Tree.

And that is when Tate found Jaws:

We packed up Jaws in the bandana and brought her back to the nature center. A helpful person working there identified Jaws as a female stag beetle.

She told us Jaws was a girl because her jaws were so little. The boys have even bigger ones they use to fight over the chicks. She picked it right up and said they don't usually pinch, so I had to hold her too.

Before we left the nature center, the kids had to make tracks. This cool exhibit was lined with silly putty and had stampers for making animal tracks.

On our way out, we passed a sign that read "please touch these benches, quickly now, don't listen to your dad."

We had a great time at Fullersburg Woods and it only cost us a few mosquito bites. We definitely got our money's worth.