Kevin and I took a trip, yaaay for that! A short one, two nights, to Starved Rock, where we’d gone to in Nov. 2023. This time, though, BEV WAS BACK to watch over our very very large herd of cats. Whoo Hoo, Bev! We were overjoyed that she came back and also that she was brave enough to withstand such a whole lot of kitties, some of whom kept her up all night by there incessant meowing. Well really, just one in particular.
Anyway, here’s what the back of the van looked like at the crack of 10:45 am on Tuesday. You’d think we were going for a month.
Starved Rock is such an awesome place and even more so because it’s a short two hour drive. We stopped for lunch at the lodge first thing and Kevin got a cup of his favorite coffee in the US. He actually polished off the whole pot.
It’s funny to me that even though I really dislike cold weather as a rule, when I’m somewhere this lovely and also all bundled up, it’s fun. Good to be outside.
Here’s a short video of the waterfall with rushing water and also ice.
I can’t recall if we’ve seen a frozen waterfall before. This time most of them had some water spilling down as well.
About to walk down a very long staircase…
And ha ha I arrived at the midway point and then so many more stairs to follow.
When we’ve hiked in the park, we’d noticed litter. The worst was in the summer – lots of water bottles, plus other debris. They’ve started a program where they give you a sack to collect litter, and if you bring it back they give you a nifty little backpack sort of thing. It’s not a true backpack, but more a brightly-colored bag with straps on it, and it has a map of the park. There are many colors to choose from.
We thought this was a great idea and Kevin did all the trash picking-up. The cane he carried on the path happened to have a sword inside it and Kevin was delighted to pierce the many objects and carry them out.
We’d seen this path down to this canyon before but had never ventured out to it. One time in the fall we remember we’d seen some young women hanging out down here, and I think they were in bathing suits. Funny to think of that.
We ended up hiking two hours on Tuesday, 3 and a half miles. At the very end we had to climb a very very high set of stairs and it was tortuous because they were metal stairs. I think they’re the only metal stairs on the trails and they were much harder on my knees than the wooden ones. I wanted to take a photo of them but by this time I was too exhausted.
We enjoyed a great dinner in the lodge afterwards.
And to end the day…Kevin started this lovely fire and I said “If only we had marshmallows” and Kevin got a funny look on his face and then dug around in his suitcase and pulled out marshmallows!
And not just regular old marshmallows, but fancy marshmallows that he’d found, they’re vanilla and small-batch and not as bad for you as the regular ones which are nothing but sugar and various sugar substances.
But wait, there’s more! He proceeded to get out some chocolate bars and graham crackers. Fantastic, what a great surprise. Of course he’d carefully packed two skewers for roasting, and the s’mores were a perfect ending to a beautiful day.
Ok then,
Mrs. Hiking H.