Big Butterfly Year: And the Lord brought forth light . . .

and Chris beheld it and it was goooood, REALLY GOOD!

Yes, I saw the sun today for the first time:
a. since Pueblo, Colorado
b. in 71 hours
c. for 975 miles
d. all of the above
If you answered all of the above, you are correct!

I nearly stopped the bike, pulled out the tripod and camera. and took a pic of myself making a sun angel in the middle of I-72 in Quincy, Illinois, but I figured the highway patrol would frown on that, so I fought the temptation. What I did do though, was found an exit with a gas station, Wendy's, and large vacant field of flowers, and went butterfly hunting after filling up the bike. In fact, I was so anxious to get into the field, I ignored the fact that I had to pee. Later, I ducked in behind a bush, only to realize when I was nearly done that I was in clear view of east-bound I-72, and the school bus that was traveling down it. I turned and faced the country club instead.
I did not see anything new for the BBY in the vacant field, which was ok. I did see lots of monarchs refueling for the trip south, and perhaps even more spectacular, at least for me, I saw the biggest, brightest, most exsquisite (sp?) Red Admiral I had ever seen. This bug was monarch size (normally they are half that) and had the brightest red I had ever seen on a butterfly. The pic I post below will not do it justice.
Speaking of pics, realize I had not taken a picture of a butterfly since John's house near Portal, roughly guestimating about 1,760 miles previously. Hard to imagine going that far w/o seeing a butterfly. Although, I did see the nearly frozen four monarchs in Nebraska, and since my hands were nearly frozen as well I did not bother with a pic.
On the other end of Illinois from Barry (the site of the mis-directed pee stop), I stopped at Kickapoo (do you notice a theme developing here!) State Park near the Indiana border. Once again, nothing new, but the thrill of simply seeing butterflies. I will post some pics below of butterfly species I have probably already posted, plus a fun pic highlighting the theme of the blog (in addition to the sun).