Glencoe, IL–What a treat! Record rainfall covered the Skokie Lagoons dams, making it easy to access all ponds without portaging. I paddled from the Tower Road boat launch down to the Willow Road dam first. Cormorants fished in their usual spot at the far south pond. A great blue heron eyed me from his perch atop a bat box, uncertain about my red boat approaching. Paddling back north, I tried to go against the flow of the main dam at Tower Road. Rather than push it, I went around the eastern ponds where a couple of green herons were fishing. It was an easy glide over the northeast dam and to a small set of ponds there. They closely connect to the western ponds, and I slipped out of the kayak and back in on the western side, closest to the bike trail. Magnificent! This water trail leads right up into the Chicago Botanic Garden, just past Willow Road. There you can slip right next to flowering plants and alone with nature. I spied a huge 1-foot diameter turtle sunning himself on a log on my return trip–the first turtle I’ve seen all summer. At one point a red-tailed hawk etched circles over me. Blue and green herons, terns, hawks, cardinals, sparrows, turtles–dam good.