Question: What do deer, a snake and cheeseburgers make?  Answer: A pretty good Date Day.  Today’s destinations were Black Partridge Forest Preserve in Lemont and Hackney’s in Palos Park.

We started our day at smallish, and little known, Black Partridge Forest Preserve.  The 80-acre preserve is named for Chief Black Partridge, a leader of the Potawatomi Indians in the early 1800’s, he also went by the name Black Pheasant, which sounds much cooler than Black Partridge, but not as cool as Black Panther.

The preserve, created to protect its spring-fed stream, was the second nature preserve dedicated in Illinois.  While small, the are is interesting.  The unmarked trails cross several steep ravines and streams, so we kept finding ourselves looking for ways to cross the water without getting wet.  We tossed rocks, climbed over dead trees and mostly succeeded, but Theresa did manage to get a wet foot at one point.

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Along the trail, we found a family of deer that did not seem scared of us.  We even managed to get a few close-up pictures.  This is probably because the preserve is little used.  Tom saw a woodpecker, but once again we were unable to capture the little bugger in a photo.  Towards the end of our hike, we even found a little snake nestled amongst the leaves.  As usual, Theresa freaked out, but still managed to get close enough for a picture.  For someone so creeped out by snakes, she sure does love taking pictures of them!

Black Partridge is a good place to spend a couple hours, if you want to take a short hike amongst the ravines and streams.  In the summer, we imagine you would see a lot of fish and snakes in the streams and more birds in the trees.  There is also a small shelter and a picturesque little stone bridge near the parking lot, which would make for a nice picnic spot.  It is definitely not the best place we’ve been for a hike but is it worth a visit.

With the physical part of our date out of the way, we decided to head for lunch.  We are no spring chickens, but we definitely brought the average age down in the dining room at Hackney’s.