In search of some fall color

This past Sunday afternoon, Andrew & I took The Great Sosini to run around in the forest at the Morton Arboretum.  I was hoping that if we drove on the east side main route, the fall color would be advanced enough that the area near the Big Rock visitors' station would be in the "ring of fire" stage (it's so awesome-- the trees all turn bright yellow and orange and form a fiery tunnel), but we were a few days too early.  Not to worry....  With Sonia around, there is always fun to be had!  She had a blast running around on the bark chip path and taking excursions into the woods to check out interesting trees and logs.

My little point-and-shoot camera was having a devil of a time trying to figure out how to take pictures in the dappled sunlight that struggled through the tree canopy....

Here's a bit of the fall color that is already here:

This was the coolest tree....  Apparently, the tree had snapped in half, and the top of it had fallen over and landed upside-down.  Here's the top half:

The bottom half is right behind the top half in this picture:

Such a little goofball!

Our intrepid explorer thought running around in the woods was awesome....  Thank goodness most of the mosquitoes are gone now; the last time we were in these woods, Sonia's poor friend, Ike, got a face full of golf ball-sized bites thanks to a previously-unknown mosquito bite allergy.

Maybe the Ring of Fire will be ready by this weekend!