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| Starved Rock - French Canyon |
Having grown up
visiting Illinois in November for Thanksgiving every year, my impression of the
state has always been grey, brown, and dead. Not so with the two state parks
Ryan and I visited yesterday though. The greenery and canyons we visited were
absolutely beautiful and definitely worth revisiting in the spring when the
water is really flowing. We visited Starved Rock state park first where we picnicked
and hiked to French Canyon. The rest of the trails were closed due to “severe
storm damage” which was a bummer, but afforded us the opportunity to visit Matthiessen
state park next door where I got some great waterfall shots.
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| Starved Rock -French Canyon |
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| Matthiessen State Park |
We then completed the
first day by driving to my Aunt and Uncle’s home in Lake Zurich, north of
Chicago. We were served the best appetizers and Chicago deep dish we could ask
for, plus cheesecake for dessert. The food was wonderful and the company even
better, and Ryan and I were pretty grateful to have a bed to sleep in for our
first night on the road. My aunt managed to be a completely gracious hostess with a broken arm on her dominant hand and my uncle managed to be a gracious host even though we're Cardinal fans. (Hehe!) My uncle from Harvard, Illinois even drove down to meet us and it was a wonderful visit all around.
This morning our hosts
treated us to famous Walker Brothers breakfast (I had my favorite silver dollar
pancakes and Ryan had a spicy Sante Fe omelet) and now we’re off to the Windy
City. Stay tuned for more!
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| My model, posing. |
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| A nice little reminder from the powers that be. |
P.S. Ryan wanted
everyone to know that I’ve already lost the license plate bet from my first
post. Tennessee did not take long to show up.
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