Another Afternoon Hike

After a morning rain, conditions cleared up and dried out enough to allow my mother and I to go on another hike.  This time, we hiked somewhere neither of us had ever been: Stemler Cave Woods, between Millstadt and Columbia, Illinois.  Sitting atop a karst plain geology, the woods is thoroughly pocked with sinkholes and full of various species of oak and hickory, an understory of dogwood and redbud, and edged with sassafras and sumac.  Fortunately, the trails are very wide, as I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much poison ivy in my life.  But even that most despised plant turns so beautiful in Autumn…