There is no city on the planet quite like Bangkok. The city is quitessentially Thai, and much of it is quite poor, yet shoots of cosmopolitan wealth spring throughout the city like bamboo above the swamp.

High-rises overlook broken down slums. Modern highways and mass transit rise above the perpetual traffic jams of the main roads. Wandering down dark, roughly paved alleys one can be startled by a lurking four-star hotel, and sleepy resedential streets rub shoulders with notorious red-light districts. The city is dense and almost completely uninterrupted by green space and goes on seemingly forever.

I’m in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, waiting for the Frankenstorm to arrive. Let me tell you about where I was about a week ago. There were no storms in sight, Franken or otherwise.

State parks are set out to preserve the wonders of nature. One often finds unusual and varied wildlife, plant life, terrain, geology. The Indiana Dunes offer some less natural foliage.

I found myself at Starved Rock, about two hours east of Chicago.

This spot in the Illinois Valley was carved out by a catastrophic glacial flood when the last Ice Age ended. An enormous glacial lake– geologists know not exactly where or when– was breached and all the water was unleashed at once right into the valley. It stripped the valley to the bedrock, and then stripped the bedrock.