This July, we are vacationing in central Illinois, Uttica, Illinois to be exact. We chose this lovely area of the state of Illinois so that Alissa and Nathan can join us for a weekend. Clearly it is not St. George Island, but when we checked it out in early May, we were quite excited with what we found.
We will be staying at a resort about two miles from Starved Rock State Park. These photos were taken at the State park and at a few other nearby spots that we will visit.
All State parks in Illinois are free, I guess they make up for it with their tolls! Anyway, that is nice since there are three state parks all within a few miles of our resort.
Starved Rock has many beautiful hiking trails. Most are boardwalks, nice and wide. Lots of steps and climbs. This is one of the scenic look outs and they are very scenic indeed. Most overlook the Illinois River which is very wide at this point. John is dedicating this photo to my dad, who never missed an opportunity to use one of the big magnifiers to look at things!
There are lots of canyons in this park, too. There will be waterfalls near these canyons when there has been more rainfall. It should be fun for Tizita to hike down to these areas and explore.
Just a lovely lady along the trail.
Directly across the river, we will be able to watch the locks at work. On the day that we were there, we watched this big cargo barge go through the locks. There are at least sixteen locks along the Illinois River.
This is one of the old locks all hand built and run by man. We were planning a mule pulled barge ride through these old locks for Nathan's birthday this July, but Alissa said he wouldn't like that idea!
At any rate, we are excited about our vacation to Central Illinois, mostly because we will all be .together, but it helps that it looks to be a fun, pretty spot to spend a week. Sometimes people mistakenly think of Illinois as one big Chicago, but it really has some beautiful areas.
2 comments:
I've always wanted to explore Starved Rock. I hear it's very beautiful. I know you will have a great vacation full of laughs (esp if Tiz is around from what I've heard).
I was a teenager the last time I was at Starved Rock. So, I don't remember much of it, but do remember going to Turkey Run and doing the trails there. Am sure you will have a great time. Take lots of pictures.
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