When Kat McHenry planned a girls' trip to Chicago with her cousin, she planned to do what any Chicago tourist would do: compare Pequod's and Lou Malnati's deep-dish pizza, explore the Field Museum, and tour the city's landmarks.
But one thing stood out about their trip: They got matching cicada tattoos.
The main reason the Monterey, California, resident and her cousin, an aspiring entomologist, came to the Windy City was the appearance of periodical cicadas, which emerge from the ground every 17 years to chirp, mate and then die.
“What really drew me to this trip and what I enjoyed about it was being able to share the journey with her and inspire her to get involved in science and get her interested in science and maybe even nudge her a little bit on her journey to school,” McHenry said.
And they're not alone: Other nature lovers are also traveling to Illinois from near and far to watch the emergence of two breeding groups of cicadas that usually emerge every 13 or 17 years. For the first time since 1803, the two cicada breeding groups will emerge simultaneously and in more than a dozen states.
The historic emergence is happening in Illinois, with the 17-year cicadas covering mostly the northern half of the state while the 13-year cicadas are mostly concentrated in the southern part, and the two are set to meet near Springfield.
“Illinois is [cicada tourism] For now, several counties in central Illinois [have] “It's an overlap area where you could potentially get both,” said Teri Gill of Carrollton, Texas, who is visiting Chicago next week with her 13-year-old niece.
For Maxime André Goddard, the natural phenomenon was reason enough to take his partner and daughter on a road trip from Montreal to Chicago. The family is in the area this weekend, hoping to get out and see the cicadas while they enjoy the city.
“It's something you don't see very often so everyone should take the opportunity to go and see it,” he said.
Goddard, 47, envisioned her one-year-old daughter returning to the area when she turns 18 to watch the next emergence of the cicadas.
“If she could be there again, that would be amazing,” he said. “If she's older… that would just be phenomenal.”
Dave Odd, who leads the “Eat the Neighborhood” foraging tours, said he led a non-cicada-related expedition in Oak Park on Sunday, but it included tourists from Japan who wanted to see the insects. The group found some cicadas, and Odd fried them for the tourists to eat. He plans to host a cicada event at his Beaverville home in June.
Morton Botanical Garden spokeswoman Erin Fortino said curious visitors have called from as far away as Seattle, Alberta, Montreal, Washington state, Tennessee and Buffalo, New York, to tell her they're coming to see the cicadas.
Two of the visitors, McHenry and her 22-year-old cousin Maddie McKee, rented a car and visited the Lisle Botanical Gardens. They spotted swarms of tiny cicadas in the grass and trees, which they picked up and carried around. Wanting to see more, McHenry posted on Facebook asking fellow cicada lovers where they could go. The Californian hit the cicada jackpot in Downers Grove, thanks to a Facebook user's suggestion.
“So we actually started seeing large groups of them climbing up trees all over the place, flying around and making a lot of noise, and that's definitely something we wanted to see,” McHenry said.
McHenry, 34, works as a marine biologist and has traveled to experience natural phenomena firsthand, including visiting Indianapolis last month to watch a total solar eclipse. She said watching natural phenomena is always fun, but this trip held a special meaning.
“The greatest joy for me is [the experience] “With my cousin,” McHenry said.
Gill, 41, is hoping to foster a similar bond with her niece. This will be Gill's second cicada-watching trip this year, having recently seen the 13-year insects in St. Louis and then in 2021 seeing “Brood X” in Washington, D.C. But the self-described nature lover went solo on his first two trips. This time, he plans to share the experience.
“In her young mind, some of the coolest things she'd ever seen were watching the annual cicada molt next to our house and being able to observe the creatures all around her,” Gill said of her niece.
Your first order of business upon arrival is to visit the insect sanctuary and check out the museum, and get yourself a parade of cicadas (statues to decorate themselves and display around town).
The last time Matt Prusak saw a periodical cicada, he was 10 years old and had just moved to Tinley Park. He and a friend who lived nearby found a white cicada and buried it in a tin can. He remembered seeing the insect flying around, and had missed the emergence stage.
“Semi are very friendly, [and] “So I got interested in them because they're so happy just to ride on people,” he said. “So I remember that really fun summer.”
Prusak, now 26, learned about a cicada tour in Skokie on Sunday afternoon and made the two-hour round trip from Schererville, Ind., to Laurel Park, where the couple and other tourists watched hundreds of cicadas emerge.
Prusak said an encounter with a cicada as a child sparked a long-held love affair with insects, and seeing one again would complete that love.
“It was a really good closure to adulthood, or so I thought,” he said. “I'd seen the end of life before, and then I'd lived for 17 years and seen the other half of it, so I felt like I'd finished the story of the cicadas.”
For Gill, the sound of the cicadas is awe-inspiring.
“When you hear these really tiny creatures making these sounds, it sounds really otherworldly when you're in the middle of it,” Gill says. “They create this really otherworldly, amazing chorus, and you only get to experience this chorus for a very short period of time when these caterpillars emerge.”
