Go West Young Man!

That famous phrase came to my mind as I took notice of our hikes a couple weeks ago. (I’m delayed again getting the photos attached to the text). We began our week of adventure by revisiting an oft-visited Carmel park, West Park after it had been closed for over a year to be “reimagined.” It is located far to the city’s western border, but I still think that a catchier name could have been thought up. But still, we have lots of memories from visits to the park. It is there that many serious conversations have occurred while circling the park’s edges on the trails weaving past the open fields full of native plants animated with tons of grasshoppers and through the woods that offered welcome shade on the sunny hot days and the fishing pond where turtles and minnows could easily be spotted while walking across the wooden boardwalk that plays tricks on your eyes if you look down too long. It is also the park where I took a fluky fall that resulted in a most unexpected serious break of my humerus, which btw was not humorous at all. Although the scar from the surgery to repair the break isn’t noticeable to me anymore, the memory of that occurrence makes me far more cautious while walking on uneven paths. For the most part I was happy to see that the trails remained the same, it is the playground/waterpark areas that were “reimagined.”

Indian Summer!! This meteorological phenomenon coincided nicely with G’s and my excursion west into Illinois to explore a couple state parks while checking out their hiking trails. Our hikes felt more like our summertime adventures than what we expected to encounter in late October, except that the trails were covered with colorful leaves and the views from the summits were wow worthy.

We began by heading to Illinois’ far western border, the Illinois River, landing at Pere Marquette State Park. Given the time of year we were fortunate to get a room at the lodge, but only for one night. As we turned off the main road to head up to the lodge we were surprised to see so many people, but quickly realized that the beautiful warm weather was bringing people out to enjoy the fall colors. Pere Marquette is not that far across the river from St. Louis and it certainly felt like St. Louis had flocked to the park and nearby touristy towns. After checking in we stopped by the dining room to see if a reservation was needed; yup. There was a 2 ½ hour wait for a table at 3:15pm. So, that worked out just fine, we gave our name and headed out for our first hike. Upon arriving back, our table was ready.

~ A toast with a local wine to a beautiful fall sunset over the Illinois River

From the lodge we headed toward the Welcome Center to get a sense of what the trails were like and to pick a hike that we could squeeze in before dinner. Being Sunday, the center wasn’t open, and all the trail maps had been picked up so we decided to just wing it and headed toward a set of stairs that we were seeing many people descend and exit the woods from. We quickly realized that most of the park steeply rises from the banks of the Illinois River as we ascended higher and higher into the woods. The brightly colored foliage made for beautiful scenery as we navigated our way along the trail. We had not hiked trails with so much elevation for quite a while and many muscles began making their presence know. A stark reminder that it doesn’t take long at all to lose the endurance that I had worked up to. Each hike last week was a challenge, but each evening I felt good for completing the trail. This milestone year will be at an end before I know it, and it became clear that I can’t put off prioritizing the benefit of physical activity and simply being outside. Not only are there physical rewards, there are mental rewards as well. I mustn’t forget the importance of Vitamin D “therapy” whether it’s warm or cold. As the days grow shorter and colder and day to day activities move to the indoors I still need to find excuses to be outside. Personal take away for me as I appreciated how uplifting fresh air and a dose of sunshine can be.

About our first 24 hour host, Pere Marquette State Park. The park is located west of Grafton, IL very close to the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. Glaciers that pushed down across Illinois stopped short of the park area, forming the rivers and leaving the elevated terrain. In 1673 Pere Marquette (a French Jesuit missionary priest) and Louis Joliet (a cartographer) with assistance from Native Americans, explored the area looking for a passage to the Pacific Ocean. Upon learning from the Native Americans that the Mississippi River emptied into the Gulf of Mexico and not the Pacific Ocean the explorers turned back and their historic landing spot, located near the park, is marked by a large stone cross. Thanks to the efforts of local civic groups who wanted to preserve the land by the river for a park, in 1931 they raised enough funds to purchase the land. Initially it was to be named Piasa Bluffs, (Piasa Bird is a creature from Native American mythology)but it was renamed Pere Marquette State Park to honor the “adventurous French missionary.” There are 8000 beautiful acres to explore. If the hiking isn’t what you want to do, not a problem. The Scenic Drive is a long winding road that stretches along the top of the park, offering several places to pull over and take in the view. Our morning hike on the second day provided us a spectacular view from the top of the bluff. The storm clouds were getting close so sadly the fall colors were muted by the lack of sunshine, but it was still pretty.

Our second day of hiking took us to Fox Ridge State Park, located near Charleston, IL. This is a smaller, far less crowded park than Pere Marquette State Park, including 2,064 acres of “steep, thickly wooded ridges, broad, lush valleys and miles of rugged, scenic hiking trails.” Again, the steep, rugged trails. We saw perhaps a dozen people the entire afternoon. It felt as if we had the park to ourselves. Finding a trail map was the first challenge. There was no downloadable trail map online so we simply had to go into the park and hunt around. What we found were maps encased at the trailheads. We were able sketch out a plan to combine two trails, getting us awkwardly down to a small research fishing pond then we retraced our steps to return to car. The pond is open for public fishing from about Memorial Day to Labor Day, and it is stated that an attendant has to be present since anything caught has to be documented since it is a research pond. Being well past Labor Day the gate across the steps down to the pond was shut, but we were able to eventually pick out where a trail was, so we reached the damned pond that way. It was so serene standing at the ponds edge atop the grassy damn. There was no place to sit, the grass was high and there were no benches or even a log to plop down on. I found that to be a huge disappointment. This lovely, peaceful place, but unwelcoming, unable to spend any time at to reflect or to take in the beauty of the place. Another thing I noticed, in comparing Indiana and Michigan State Parks to Illinois State Parks, there are no entrance fees to enter the Illinois parks…and at least this second park, didn’t seem well cared for. Well off the beaten path we saw this bench so we went off the path to see why this random bench was perched atop the hill and what we found was evidence that no one has sat here in a very very long time and we could only imagine what the view was when it was installed, because now there are so many trees in front of it and down the hill that there was nothing of interest that we could discern. Another mystery of the day.

Storms shortened our list of parks to visit, but we feel we got a good sense of Illinois State Parks, and we were still able to enjoy several rugged hikes. We saw a lot of rural Illinois as well, driving from park to park. It’s much more like Indiana than Michigan, having field after field of corn. Flat as can be, then out of nowhere these parks with bluffs and rivers pop up with interesting terrain. The fields seem to stretch farther in Illinois, but eventually I figured out why. While recently driving to a park in Indiana, I observed the sprawling corn fields like in Illinois, but they include random wooded groves that break up the view to the horizon. Something I hadn’t taken notice of until last week.

Thinking about comparisons, I would love to revisit a park in Ohio we went to several years ago to be able to have visited all our bordering states to Indiana while writing this blog before year’s end. What stands out to me about Ohio is its rolling terrain and I’d love to add that observation to this collection of adventures and reflections. I guess we’ll see if we can slip away for a couple days again to be able to capture that experience.