Had a great time last week with Matt Meko collecting tree-ring samples in Illinois from sites sampled by D. Duvick in 1980. We were joined at Ferne Clyffe St. Park by Justin Maxwell and his crew and and Kankakee St. Park and Starved Rock St. Park by Emma Bialecki (@emmabialecki). We saw some great old growth oak forest though there was a lot of invasive species in some areas. The highlight of the trip for me was sampling at Starved Rock since there had been a derecho there this past summer and we were able to collect almost 50 great cross sections! We made these recollections to study drought in Illinois. it will be interesting to see how the intense drought in this region in 2012 compares to the past several hundred years. For more pics see https://plus.google.com/+MatthewTherrell/posts/BMpiB2ocxmC