Brenda and Harlan's Trip Blog

The alarm went off on time, but we were both Movin’ Slow, and didn’t get the car packed up and hit the road until close to noon. The phone book said the AT&T Wireless store was next to the KrispyKreme we passed on the way to dinner last night, and that seemed to be a Sign. The good news was the “Hot Donuts Now” sign was off, so we were able to resist. Harlan was able to replace the broken belt clip holster for his new phone, and we stopped off at the CD Warehouse place next door and sold them a CD we picked up in Chico and replaced it with a 3-CD set of the best of the Jazz Crusaders.

Our next stop was IHOP for breakfast, and we now know 2 things: don’t order their oatmeal, and their Harvest Grain pancakes are better than the regular buttermilk pancakes.

We called the ranger at the Badlands visitors center and told him about the bobcat picture. He was interested in it, so we got his email address so we could send him the url to the picture. He said they might want to use it for their collection. We’ll see…

Once on the highway we made it to the hotel in Ogelsby IL by about 3pm, and after checking in we headed straight to Starved Rock State Park for some hiking.

We climbed to the top of Starved Rock (it seemed smaller to Harlan, who last saw the place probably 35 years ago), which now has a view of a wintering area for some bald eagles (we saw 4 or 5 of them). We hiked to a few more places (including French Canyon, with some frozen waterfalls) and it was pretty nice. If you ask Brenda about these places she’ll say they were pretty and it was nice, and if you ask her if the trails were muddy she’ll talk about how there was “mud everywhere” and it wasn’t much fun.

We’re planning to head back again tomorrow (the eagle viewing is best before 11am) and then hike more trails.

After we hiked, we visited the lodge. They have expanded everything there (the parking lot, the lodge, …) and lots of the trails have been closed, and much of the remaining ones are now “boardwalk” trails to avoid erosion.

Brenda was getting hungry, so we headed back to the hotel for a recommendation. We picked Mr. Salsas, a mexican place in town. Great chips (they didn’t salt them), good food, and Brenda will probably suggest we have another meal there because she really liked the way the fried chicken looked.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 4th, 2005 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Early 2005 Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.