Certain locations in Illinois are anticipating the springtime emergence of two periodical cicada broods. Brood XIII emerges once every 17 years, and Brood XIX emerges once every 13 years. This year they emerge together.
On the south side of Chicago, I walked across snow-covered sand on an icy lakeshore. The ice that had formed where water met beach lowly creaked as water moved underneath it. The winter day was cold, but, thankfully, there was a lack of wind whose harshness would have only been magnified by traveling across Lake Michigan.