Starved Rock

The three of us took a little trip to Starved Rock State Park this weekend. Geoff took a half day on Friday and we drove down and stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in scenic Oglesby, Illinois. It's nice to get away together. Suffice it to say, though, I have not yet mastered traveling light with a baby, and we loaded the trunk of the car full of stuff.

Because of road construction it took three hours to get there (instead of two), and Friday night we just relaxed, went out to dinner, and watched a little of the presidential debate. Cora took to the posh hotel lifestyle (ha!) like a fish to water.

We did get a baby crib for the room, but as we suspected, Cora wasn't interested, and slept between us on the king-size bed, curled up like a cat against whomever was closest, or at times stretched perpendicular between us.

After breakfast on Saturday we headed out to the park for a few hours of hiking. Cora's only morning nap was dozing in the car on the drive over to the park, but it didn't seem to faze her; she did great on the hike. Not a complaint out of her, and she seemed really into looking around. Geoff carried her the whole time--apparently she's much lighter than his normal camping pack. I carried our water, bug spray, etc.

After a stop at the visitor center, we started out by climbing up to Starved Rock itself, which had a view of the Illinois River and Leopold Island:




Then down into the woods. As you can see, not a difficult trail at all:


As much as we enjoy being out in the woods, it's hard to take pictures that don't make it all look the same. "Look, a tree! Another tree!" Doesn't really capture what it's like to walk under that soothing leafy canopy :
The canyons are the main attraction at Starved Rock. They're kind of surprising after driving through a couple of hours of rolling prairie farmland to get there. Here is Wildcat Canyon:
A river trail:
French Canyon, my favorite:
This video of French Canyon is less than two minutes total, but I had to break it into three parts. At this point we had hiked out and around and were headed back toward the visitor center, but we weren't sure how close we were. In Part 2 you may be able to spot a tell-tale clue. If not, if you turn up the volume you may hear Geoff's Encyclopedia-Brown-style deduction of how close we must be.





("That's how I know we're close to the visitor center." "How?" "That little girl had an ice cream cone. And it wasn't melted.")

Corapillar is getting sleepy--time to head for the car.


All that hiking wore Cora out, and after having some lunch, she napped hard. You could tell it was one of those delicious sleeps where you think you might meld with the mattress:

She has such a perfect little sleeping face--that cheek is as kissable as it looks.

When she woke up more than two hours later, we went for a dip in the hotel pool. This is probably the closest she came to smiling about it:

Her teeth started chattering early, so her swim was pretty short-lived.

More relaxing and dawdling over dinner, and then she slept even better the second night than she had the first. Normally at home she sleeps in a darkened room, so I have to get all these sweet sleeping photos when I can!Sunday after breakfast we headed out and had a much easier drive home. We hope we have the chance to take some more little trips like this with our girl!