Showing posts with label ILLINOIS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ILLINOIS. Show all posts

STARVED ROCK STATE PARK (IL) ★★★★

FRIDAY - We are in Route 66 territory here in Illinois. So we decided to drive a short 15-mile section of it from Lincoln to Atlanta, not the one in Georgia, the one here in Illinois.

The Historic Route 66 parallels the modern day Interstate 55 between these two small Illinois towns and boy do I wish I had taken the Interstate. To say that Route 66 is a little bumpy would be a huge understatement.

At the intersection of Vine (aka Route 66) and Arch Streets in Atlanta, IL is where you'll find...

...the newest Route 66 themed museum who's Grand Opening is on Memorial Day next month.

They already have one giant hanging out in the side yard with space for at least three more.

This guy is just across the street and holding a giant hotdog in his hands?

Hey! Who's that photobombing my 19' foot tall friend?

OK, now that the fun stuff is done it's time to put on some miles before the weather takes a turn for the worse later this morning.

Here's another one of those boring travel day photos. At least this one has newly planted fields in the foreground, buildings filled to the rafters with caged chickens in the middle and wind turbines in the background generating electricity.

Upon arrival at Starved Rock State Park it was pouring down rain and not expected to let up in the next few hours. Guess the outside campsite photos will have to wait until tomorrow.

SATURDAY - This morning just after breakfast we headed over to the Visitor Center to basically "see what there is to see" here in the park.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again, when I'm researching where it is we are going to visit I usually only research long enough to decide two things. One is if we even need to visit the location and two, try to get a feel for how long it may take to "see most everything" at that location. I guess the third thing would be to find out if I need to make arrangements for things like timed entry passes (i.e. National Parks), hiking permits, boat tours or advanced ferry tickets in the case of island camping.

Once the determination is made that we'll plan a visit somewhere I stop reseaching, so that when we arrive we're more likely to enjoy the surrounds and leave something to be surprised by that we weren't expecting. It's just what works for us! It may not work for you.

What my preliminary research revealed about Starved Rock State Park is that it is unanimously regarded as the "Premiere State Park" in all of Illinois, according to the few websites I use to get information on state parks. I don't rely on the State Parks websites for information, otherwise according to them, EVERY state park is somewhere you need to visit.

What our Visitor Center outing this morning taught us is first, you don't want to visit Starved Rock State Park on the weekend, this is true of most state parks. The weekend, even in the shoulder season like it is here and now, is filled with locals and travelers alike on the trails, so is the campground by the way.

Starved Rock is known for their hiking trails, all 13-miles of them. They offer views of waterfalls, canyons and high overlooks of the Illinois River.

All the trails are listed as easy to moderate, so that's why they're so popular. Today at 10:00AM the huge parking lots were already half filled with mostly Illinois licence tagged vehicles. Younger people and young familys seemed to make up most of the crowd today. We're hoping tommorow may be a little less crowded so we can get out and hike.

SUNDAY - It's been raining here for the last two days, mostly at night, and we haven't really been able to do much outdoorwise.

We're just glad we're not getting the same weather that's occuring 400-miles west of here in Iowa and Nebraska. Tornados have also been devastating the states of Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas. There have been 138 tornados reported over the last 48-hours in these 6 states.

The town of Sulphur, OK was torn apart last night by a large tornado. If you remember, we were just there two weeks ago.

I'll be happy to deal with the winds and rain here, just keep the hail and tornados away from us.

We did manage to get out of THE POD today and do one of the shorter hikes.

The Starved Rock Trail is only .6-mile round trip, but it's all uphill (125') until you turn around to head back.

The name "Starved Rock" is derived from an Indian legend about a village of indians coming under attack and they sought refuge on top of this rock. The attacking indians surrounded the rock and prevented the indians from getting food or water. Eventually the entire village perished from starvation on top of the rock.

Although it's a pretty gruesome legend, no one has ever been able to substantiate it with facts.

STARVED ROCK TRAIL

SLIDE NUMBER
1OF9

The trail starts out flat and simple from behind the Visitor Center.
SLIDE NUMBER
2OF9

Then the paved path starts gradually heading uphill.
SLIDE NUMBER
3OF9

Next to approach the first set of stairs.
SLIDE NUMBER
4OF9

Around the corner you'll immediately be presented with the next set of stairs.
SLIDE NUMBER
5OF9

The top of the second set of stairs leaves you just short of the top of the rock.
SLIDE NUMBER
6OF9

From up here you get a bird's eye view of the Starved Rock Lock and Dam.
SLIDE NUMBER
7OF9

There's a small loop in the trail on top of the rock...
SLIDE NUMBER
8OF9

...but eventually what goes up, must come down! Back to the parking lot that is.
SLIDE NUMBER
9OF9

Back down on the ground be found the parking lot surrounded by Canadian Geese.

Would you like to be notified of new blog posts?

Labels:

THE LAND OF LINCOLN (IL)

THURSDAY - Knowing that we would be traveling mostly over Interstate 72 and then Interstate 55 today and not seeing anything too interesting other than a lot of farm and ranch lands, I scouted out a couple of sightseeing opportunities in the town where we'll be spendng the night.

As you can see in the first photo we were heading through downtown Hannibal just before 11:00AM this morning.

A few minutes later and we were crossing the Mississippi River into Illinois and weren't too surprised when the first gasoline price we saw was $3.68 and that was at Walmart's Murphy USA Station which is usually the cheapest price around.

Goodbye Hannibal, until next time!

Just before we approached the state capitol of Springfield, we pulled off the Interstate and found a Steak-n-Shake restaurant to have lunch. Afterwards it was time to return to the Interstate and press on to our destination in Lincoln, IL.

The town of Lincoln, IL has the distinction of being the only town in the entire country named for and christened by Abraham Lincoln "before" he became our 16th President (1861-1865), lots of places were named Lincoln after he was elected and achieved national fame.

Lincoln, IL was planned and surveyed from 1852-1853 and Abraham Lincoln provided legal services to the town’s planners.

On August 27, 1853, the first lots of land in the new town were sold. Abraham Lincoln was on hand to officially christen the town, which had been named in his honor. As Lincoln did not drink alcohol, the juice of a watermelon was sprinkled on the ground to christen the town.

Located right next door to the Amtrak Station in Lincoln, IL you'll find...

...the Lincoln Watermelon Monument, which now commemorates this slightly odd moment.

The Historic Route 66 cuts right through the downtown areas of Lincoln, IL which explains a couple of oddities that can be found here.

First up is this photo of the town's fire station. See anything odd in the photo?

It's not the fact that they appear to be installing a new roof, but you're close!

YES! That is a phone booth up there on the roof.

This is not just a prank, it was actually manned by the firefighters in the 1960s during inclement weather to observe and warn the townspeople of impending dangerous weather, especially tornados. I'll bet they're glad about all the modern advancements in weather prediction we've made over the last 60-years.

In case you were wondering, NO a phone is no longer located inside of the booth on the roof.

One last item we explored before arriving at our destination is certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the "World’s Largest Covered Wagon". I think they better revisit that decision, because today it is not covered at all. However I did find a photo online from as recent as September of 2023 where there was a cover on it.

I guess they only cover the wagon during special events or holidays?

At 25' tall and 40' long it's still pretty large, larger than THE POD.

Who's that driving? Why it's nothing other than that lawyer fellow, Abraham Lincoln.

Just around the corner from the covered wagon is the only Walmart Supercenter location in Lincoln, IL and our destination for tonight.

Would you like to be notified of new blog posts?

Labels:

OUR 4-DAY MAD DASH ACROSS THE MIDWEST!

MAD
DASH
DAY #1

THURSDAY

STOP #447 		3.3 miles of Interstate Highway driving!

Day #1 of our Mad Dash included 284-miles of driving east through the Cornhusker State of Nebraska. Avoiding the Interstates took us through the rural areas of central Nebraska and it was soon easy to see how the state got it's nickname.

All we saw were corn fields and grain silos, with an occasional train hauling what I believe to be coal, that is when we could see through the dense fog that seemed to hang around until noon.

I scheduled our departure perfectly this morining so that we would arrive in the town of York, NE just about lunch time.

There are several reasons why I chose York for our lunch stop today. The first is because there is a Runza restaurant in town, we are still in Nebraska after all.

Second reason is right next door to Runza is a self-serve car wash with bays large enough to fit ROVER and THE POD. They were both in need of a quick rinse after traveling on that wet 14-mile gravel road last week.

Lastly, York in the town were my father was born some 100+ years ago. I'm well aware that the town we saw today looks nothing like it did back in the 1920s when my dad was growing up, but I still felt the need to at least pay it a visit.

One other interesting thing that we observed today was that along the first 130+ miles of our route we kept seeing huge yard sales on both sides of the road, on a Thursday none the less? Some had signs displaying the words "A Junk Jaunt" location.

When we finshed our drive we looked it up! Every year since 2004 on the last full weekend in September there is a yard sale along Route 2 in Nebraska. It covers 9 counties, 35+ communities and nearly 500-miles of shopping.

This is very similiar to the "127 Yard Sale", which claims to be the longest yard sale in the county, which is held the first weekend of August and runs down US-127 from Michigan to Alabama, that's 690-miles of shopping fun!

We didn't stop to buy anything because we currently have everything we need and we'd have nowhere to store anything if we did but it.

MAD
DASH
DAY #2

FRIDAY

STOP #448 		0 (that's spelled zero) miles of Interstate Highway driving!

Last nights Walmart in Nebraska was less than 3-miles from the Missouri River, which creates the border between Nebraska and Iowa.

We drove the full width (279 miles) of Southern Iowa today and I'm sorry to report we have not one single photo to share of our drive.

There were a lot of smaller towns and a lot of rolling hills along Route 2, but nothing that inspired a photo. Maybe Tricia was just too tired to lift the camera today.

In one of the small towns we drove through we couldn't help but notice that EVERY single house and business along the main street was toilet-papered, just like I used to see growing up when someone didn't hand out an adequate amount of Halloween candy.

It's nowhere near Halloween yet and even City Hall, the Police and Fire Departments were decorated. We of course Googled it when we got settled and found out it's a midwest tradition to TP the town on the night before your High School Homecoming football game. Who knew? That didn't happen where I grew up in South Florida, how about any of you?

MAD
DASH
DAY #3

SATURDAY

STOP #449 		0 (that's spelled zero) miles of Interstate Highway driving!

This morning we again crossed a river shortly after getting on the road, only this time it was the Mighty Mississippi River separating Iowa from Illinois.

A little over 2-hours later and we were driving around the big city of Peoria when we crossed another rather large river, this time it was the Illinois River.

Just downriver from the current bridge they are busy constructing a brand new bridge, which is expected to be completed in the Fall of 2024. Construction began in the spring of 2019, so it's anybody's guess when it will actually be completed.

Today we drove completely across the state of Illinois and halfway across Indiana. We did see a few more houses with TP in the trees, but nothing to compare to what we saw in Iowa.

Here's a thought? Maybe the losing football team should be required to not only clean up their own town, but also the winning teams town! Now that would be an incentive to play your best.

MAD
DASH
DAY #4

SUNDAY

STOP #450 		0 (that's spelled zero) miles of Interstate Highway driving!

We started our 4th and final travel day with breakfast at the Bob Evans Restaurant across the street from Walmart.

I made sure our last day of travel would be an easy one of just 147-miles and that almost what we got.

In a little town in Indiana we saw signs mentioning a detour, but we've seen those all over the place in the last few days. Then we saw the sign that read "Bridge Out". That is not something we can ignore, so while still 5-miles outside of town we made a u-turn in the roadway and headed back out of town to take a very short 5-mile detour to get back to the route we had planned.

We arrived at the Airsteam Factory Service Center campground just 30-minutes after our Colorado friends and tomorrow morning we'll both be in the office with our list of repairs in hand. Wish us both luck!

Would you like to be notified of new blog posts?

We encourage everyone
to leave their comments
in our Facebook Group!

We would really like to hear from you!

Until next time

TWO PEAS

Labels: , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)