Wildlife Prairie Park

So, I realize that we have not blogged in quite some time. I feel that I need to provide some sort of explanation. First, the fall semester started for Immanuel and with that we have just had less time to go hiking and biking. Second, it's much colder now and the weekends haven't had nice weather lately. Third, we've had a couple things to blog about, but I am quite stubborn. You see, we were suppose to be taking turns on this blog and the next post would be Immanuel's turn. I have been trying to get him to write the post for weeks with no success. Honestly, I probably would have just written it myself (like I'm doing now) forever ago except that it took me a few days to write the "Moonshine Run" post and during that time Immanuel gave me a REALLY hard time about it. At one point he even said, "Fine. Don't write it. Whatever, why don't we just delete the whole blog then?" He will try to tell you this is not true. Anybody who knows him in real life, however, will believe me.

So, I apologize for the delay in posts. This post is about a trip we took back in September for my birthday. We went to a place called Wildlife Prairie Park in Peoria, IL. As a kid I went here with my family and have good memories of the place mostly because it was one of the very few family vacations that I can recall taking where we did not all argue the entire time. I do have one unhappy memory, however, and that is of not being able to go down the gigantic slide because it was raining. Immanuel joked that he would let me go down the slide if I wanted to.

The park consists of trails with animal exhibits spread throughout. The animals are native to Illinois (wolves, black bears, foxes, badgers, etc) and the exhibits are large and very natural. We were glad to have a zoom lens on our camera as this was the only way we were able to see the gray wolves. They were hiding at the very back of the exhibit and even with our high powered zoom lens we were only able to make out wolf like shapes.



There was a petting zoo with goats, horses, and sheep. The sheep was ridiculously soft, way softer than I ever expected. I guess I had never touched a sheep before. The horse was being stubborn and wouldn't come close enough to let me pet him. There was a miniature horse, however, that saw my hand reaching out and decided to walk just close enough and fast enough by me that my fingers were able to barely touch his hair. Stubborn horses.

Here's my friend, the sheep:

This is me, wondering why the horses don't love me.

Something was funny, apparently.

They are very determined to get some leaves.



There was a really nifty looking owl that I spent a lot of time trying to get a good picture of, mostly for my sister-in-law, Aimee, who loves owls.




I really enjoyed the badgers. One of them spent most of the time digging and the other kept pacing back and forth looking for a way out, I assume. Sometimes they would switch duties. There was always at least one pacing, looking along the fence, just in case, by some miracle a hole appeared where one hadn't been for ten years (or however long that exhibit has been there).

At the cougar exhibit we had to endure several minutes of very noisy "meowing". We could have easily tolerated this had it been from the cougar because that would have been somewhat amusing. We could have even tolerated it from a child as that would be kind of cute... maybe. However, the meowing came from a grown man, he must have been at least in his 40s and it was very loud and very obnoxious.

We saw these really neat birds called Sandhill Cranes. The information plate said that they were called "preacher birds" by early settlers because they would tilt their heads up and scream while dancing like a preacher in front of his congregation. These birds also mate for life.

Once we were done seeing all the exhibits I remember thinking, "Man this was much bigger when I was a kid!" All in all though the place was great and we really enjoyed ourselves.

Before we headed to the car I said I wanted to check out the big slide, just to see if it was really as big as I remember, and wouldn't you know it? On the way to the car... it started to rain.

Moonshine Run

On Saturday, September 4, we decided to bike a trail about an hour and a half south of us in Casey, Illinois. I was particularly proud of myself because I had been very productive throughout the week and we were completely prepared for the trip, so no last minute crazy running around or wanting to tear each others heads off.

The trip to Casey was pretty uneventful except that I was completely exhausted and could not manage to stay awake to save my life... thank God Immanuel was driving! Once we arrived in Casey it took us a bit to find the start of the trail, which really isn't a trail, it's just a series of middle of nowhere country roads. For some reason streets in little towns are rarely marked so it was difficult to figure out where we were even looking at a map. Once we found the park we were supposed to start from, it was difficult to find a parking spot due to the town's "Popcorn Festival". Normally little towns have some type of fruit or vegetable festival, but in this town I guess they like salty snacks. We finally found a parking spot and were on our way.

The trail goes through the country roads out to the tiny "town" of Moonshine, population 2, which has only one building. The building used to be a general store, but then it was bought by a couple who turned it into a restaurant. Our plan was to bike out there (about 13 miles), eat lunch and then bike back for a total of 26 miles. The roads were fairly deserted, I was getting good speed, and with the exception of one obnoxious hill it was completely flat so our timing to the restaurant was very good. As we got closer to the restaurant more and more cars started passing us.

Once we got to the restaurant we saw that EVERY single car that passed us was also going to the restaurant! I have never seen so many cars... well, okay, so that's not true, but it was an awful lot for a town that has only one thing in it. There were people in the streets taking pictures, so I joined them in the craziness. The line was ridiculously long.







At one point, while standing in line, this little boy comes running up to his mom in tears, threw his arms around her and screamed, "We are never going to get to eat here!" I think he even muttered something about the world ending. People were there from all over the country!

While standing in line, completely unstressed because I had done SUCH a good job preparing for this trip, a sudden horrible thought passed through my mind.

"Um... do they take debit or credit?" I practically whispered to Immanuel.
"I'm going to kill you," he grumbled.

So, we found a spot where we could get internet to check their website. I couldn't move from this spot or I would lose my signal and would not be able to find the information. Well, they take cash only. BUMMER. So much for good preparation. It was sort of a blessing though because it was already 11:45 and they close the grills at 12:30 regardless of how long of a line they have left. We had been standing in line for about 15 minutes and had barely moved 5 feet.

We headed back to our bikes and were stopped by a lady admiring them. She said she wanted a bike, but didn't want to have to pedal; she just wanted it to move her. She was a very nice lady and said she liked our bikes. We headed down the rode, but Immanuel got pretty far ahead of me because I was stopped by a guy and his kid so that they could tell me how cool MY bike was. Later he passed me on his super cool motorcycle and I really felt like the fact that he took the time to stop me to tell me my bike was awesome was an even bigger compliment since he had an awesome motorcycle.

Immanuel routed a different way back for us so we wouldn't be bored going back the same way. Considerate and sweet, right? There was a REASON that the book SPECIFICALLY said "GO BACK THE SAME WAY"! Now, recall that I told you we made good time in the beginning, 13 miles in about 1 hour. We did take the time, however, to admire the beautiful sky.



And take a picture of a fuzzy caterpillar.



The way back was harsh. There were so many hills! I wanted to die, but I refused to get off my bike and I managed to make it up each and every hill! We also had to go on gravel for quite some time and I just knew I was going to break my neck. We got to the top of a gravel hill where Immanuel said there should be no more gravel only to find another half mile of gravel. Every time I thought I would not have to go up a bigger hill, we'd round a corner to find one. 2 hour and 25 minutes we made it back to the park. Oh, and we had not eaten anything except for peanut butter crackers. I was starving.

We found a restaurant, Richard's Farm Restaurant that had pretty good food, but REALLY crappy service. There were times our drinks were empty for about 15 minutes. She put so much ice in the glass you'd only get about 3 drinks before you were left dry. We both had a salad bar and Immanuel had a chicken sandwich and I had a pulled pork sandwich.

I was, again, exhausted on the way back and slept the whole way. Not quite as comfortably though, because I was afraid Immanuel would fall asleep. I wanted him to take his sunglasses off, so that I could see his eyes, but he wouldn't. I also discovered on the way back that I had forgotten sunscreen and had a nice sunburn.

I think the trip was rather successful. I mean it does stink that we didn't get to actually eat at the restaurant that we biked 13 miles to get to, but maybe some other time, right?

Kennekuk Cove County Park

This weekend Ginnie's shoulder was hurting, so we decided to do a near by hiking trail instead of biking. This meant we got to take Tesla, and he got to wear his new boots.

He had them on for all of five minutes, alternating between trying desparately to get them off and trying to live with them, before he managed to get one off. At this point Ginnie decided to oblige him and remove the others. We are not sure if this was a good idea, though, because when we got home he was limping on one of his paws. We tried to clean it and got a few little bits that may have been irritating it off. He was pretty tuckered out so we didn't see him move the rest of the night, so weren't sure if that was what was bothering him. He's always appeared to favor his left paw a little; when we first got him the vet was unable to find anything wrong, so it may just be some ancient injury acting up. As of today he doesn't appear to be having any trouble.

Having not learned her lesson from our trip to Amish country, she chose a trail from our book that was 7.5 miles and had four footprints on a scale of one to five. This was due to the large number of steep dips carved out by the creeks feeding Lake Mingo. It is very difficult to take a picture of steepness, but here is Ginnie's best effort.

The brightness at the top of the hill is from the midday sun being obscured by the ground and trees. The hills were not kind to Ginnie, and before we had gone two miles she was convinced she could not finish. Unfortunately for her I am a sadist and we continued. We got some cool pictures, but unfortunately no snakes.

Most of the pictures are pretty self explanatory, but there's one that we aren't sure about. We think it's some sort of dung with the nuts and berries in it, but we're not one hundred percent positive on that. At one point Ginnie was having an awful time with the camera and could not get a clear picture. No matter what she did, it was ending up fuzzy and light. We figured out the cause when we were putting the camera in the case before a steep climb: a big white bug on the lens. Luckily just blowing on it a little made it fly off; I did not want to accidentally get dead bug juice on the lens trying to get the sucker to go away.

I forgot to charge up the batteries for DSLR, but we can shoot like 2000 pictures on one charge, so I figured it would be okay. Just before mile marker 2 it was done and we had to put it away. Luckily we also had our point and shoot. It was of no help because I didn't charge it either, and I only managed to get one fuzzy picture of a caterpillar before it died. The camera died, not the caterpillar. The only caterpillar that died during our trip was the one Tesla ate. He apparently was not a fan, because he didn't eat any more after that, even though there were hundreds of them.

Like I said, Ginnie was convinced she would never be able to finish and she would die in the woods or something, and I just dragged her on. About half way around there is a picnic table next to the water. Tesla was able to drink and Ginnie got to sit for a while (for the first three miles there was no place to sit), which must have been just what she needed because after we got going again she was feeling much better and only mentioned dying one more time. Tesla and I went exploring one off-shoot of the trail to see if it was worth taking and decided against it because it appeared to be a dead end. Ginnie was convinced I had seen a snake. The following conversation ensued:

Ginnie: Did you see an anaconda?

Me: No.

Ginnie: Do anacondas eat people?

Me: No.

Ginnie: What do they eat?

Me: Small animals.

Ginnie: Like bears?

I decided she was just saying this stuff to give me something funny to write here, but she swears that's not the case. We also decided that snakes know that bearded men are poisonous for them to eat and that the toxicity is directly proportional to beard length. This is obviously why we have seen no snakes; they fear me. So either I have convinced her to stop making me cut my beard, or she was delirious from the heat and trying not to think about how she was going to die in the woods.

The post-anaconda part of the trail was uneventful except for the blue heron skimming across the water and the deer that we didn't get pictures of. Tesla was very intent on being the leader, but he could barely manage it. He would trot ahead of us and then slow down until we caught up and then he would speed up again briefly and repeat. This went on for at least 45 minutes, though occasionally he would drift off to the side of the path and appear to look for a place to lay down. We were worried he would have to be carried back to the car, but he made it. The whole thing took a total of 4.5 hours for a whopping average speed of just over 1.5 mph.

Amish Country

For our second biking adventure, we chose to be a bit more daring. We had planned to go on a sensible 10 mile bike ride in Springfield, Illinois. The night before, however, I was looking through the biking book and came across a trail only a half-hour away from us through a county with 4,000 "old order" Amish! As I have always been fascinated by the Amish this ride intrigued me. I asked Immanuel if we could go. He asked how long it was and I replied, "oh, 30 miles". He gave me a look, but agreed.

I began to have doubts when I realized we'd be going through three different towns. My excitement, however, did not go away so we decided this was how we would spend our Saturday. Nevermind the fact that we just became "bikers" a mere 3 1/2 weeks ago or that the longest ride I'd ever been on was only 10 miles. We were going to do this and I was going to survive.

We began Saturday by biking to Le Peep for breakfast (about 4.5 miles away) and biking back home. We gathered our gear (no five trips to Meijer this week) and headed to Arcola. We were able to find the start of the trail easily, so much less stress and arguing than last week.

The trail started at an old train depot that had lots of information about Arcola and the surrounding area. As we were leaving the building, information in hand, Immanuel says, "you didn't look at the brooms". Apparently this is also a broom museum. (Did I mention this is a teeny, tiny little town?) So, I think "Oh joy! Brooms!" and am about to walk out without looking at them when the lady running the place excitedly says, "Yes, we have all kinds of brooms, some that you won't find anywhere else!" Well now I couldn't possibly pass up the opportunity to see these unique brooms, could I? So, I walked through the broom museum, which was just a room, but honestly I don't know what was so special about them, they're just brooms.

Also, while in the old train depot we learned from the broom lady that there was a better route, safer and more comfortable for bicyclists, that had just recently been re-paved since the publication of our biking book, so we changed our route a bit. We took a detour to see Rockome Gardens, but once there decided it wasn't going to be worth the money. It wasn't a total waste though because we found a nice shade tree to have a snack and drink, since Immanuel's blood sugar was in the 70s. While standing in the shade of a tree, we saw a family of Amish bicycle up and park next to the tree. Apparently Amish like to bicycle as well.

About 6 miles later (about 13 miles total into our trip) we reached the town of Arthur where we planned to stop for lunch. I decided since we were going to be burning so many calories we should allow ourselves a splurge, especially since Saturday is our free day. We went to Yoder's Kitchen, a restaurant with real Amish cooking. Interestingly, they had a gift shop that did not contain a single thing that would EVER be found in an Amish home. Also, it was a little fancier than I thought it should be and many of the employees were clearly NOT Amish. There were a few dressed plain with "Kapps" (Amish head coverings), but I really started to wonder if maybe it was all show and not for real. One Amish girl, however, had clearly never shaved her legs, so I decided that no woman would ever do that just as part of an act, so they must really be Amish. After the meal I nearly immediately regretted my decision to eat there instead of Subway. My stomach hurt, I had overeaten, and felt very sluggish. Also, I ended up having heartburn for the rest of the day and night.

As we were heading back to the main street in Arnold we go into a predicament. The road was quite busy, but there was a wide shoulder to take advantage of. We began to hear the "clomp, clomp" of horse hooves and realized they were behind us. Nowhere on the Internet, in all the reading Immanuel has done on safe bike riding, did he come across what proper etiquette is if you are being approached from behind by a horse and buggy. We couldn't go into the road because it wasn't safe to merge into traffic and we couldn't exactly expect the Amish to go around us on the road as it wasn't safe for them either. So, we took another detour through some residential neighborhoods to avoid the traffic and the horse-drawn buggies.

We decided to check out a few shops in Arnold. One store sold a bunch of different types and flavors of cheese. They had a free sample of "Lightning Jack" that Immanuel enjoyed, it was Monterey Jack with hot peppers in it. Another was a variety store with a lot of odds and ends. There were Amish outfits for baby dolls and I thought that was kind of cool.

Heading out of Arnold we realized we forgot our map of the route back in our car, so we had to use the map the broom lady gave us and ended up changing our route some. We passed many horse-drawn buggies and discovered the Amish are quite friendly, all the them waved in greeting as they passed. Once we got onto the country roads we ran across several that were gravel and that proved a little tricky, but really we just had to slow down. At one point we stopped to rest, take a drink, and give my butt, which was quite sore by this point, a well needed break. A young Amish man passing by with his horse and buggy did a double take when he saw us and I'm sure he was wondering why a couple "Englishers" (as we are referred to by the Amish) were in the middle of nowhere riding bicycles.

The country roads were nice because there were no cars, so we could ride side by side, but there was also no shade. This was the stretch where I became very whiny because my butt was starting to get sore. My legs were fine, but my butt was not, so we had to stop every ten to fifteen minutes to take a break.

All along the county roads there were more butterflies than I'd ever seen and it must have been butterfly mating season because we broke a number of butterfly orgies. We also saw several caterpillars running faster than should be possible with such short legs across the road screaming "Ow! Ow! Hot! Hot! Hot!" Their voices are much lower than I expected.

When we stopped to rest we figured out why the caterpillars were moving so quickly and screaming. You see, the road was hot enough that tar was kind of melted. There were several totally melted tar droplets all around us and our feet and bicycle tires kept sticking in it. We were actually leaving footprints and tire tracks in the road! While we were stopped we picked up a hitchhiker, a yellow ladybug. She rode on my bike for several miles, and then I thought she had taken off, only to find out later she had switch to Immanuel's bike.

I wasn't entirely sure if I was going to survive the last 5 miles, but we finally made it to Casey's where we stopped to get some cold Gatorade (we had exhausted our fluid supply on the last few miles of our trip and it wasn't exactly frosty by that point) before heading to our car to load up the bikes and return home.

Once home Immanuel charted our route on Google since we changed some of it and discovered that we actually went at least 35 miles. We biked for 3 hours and 25 minutes. That's actual bike time because I paused my watch timer when we stopped for breaks. I wear a heart rate monitor that also estimates calories burned and it said I burned 3,600 calories!!

Once you factor in the morning bike ride to and from Le Peep, we biked 4 hours and 25 minutes, 45 miles, and I burned 4,600 calories!!

I survived my first long bike ride and enjoyed every bit. Well, except for those last 5 miles!

Robert Allerton Park

On the day we completed our first biking trail we also completed our first hike. We will definitely go back to this park as there are several trails we did not get to take. The park is beautiful and very peaceful. The only problem with the park is that there were too many people getting hitched on the day we went and we kept getting in people's way when they were taking pictures. Once we left the paved part of the trail and actually entered the forest this problem was over.

Our hike was fairly short, only about 2.5 miles. It was mostly through the forest, so very shaded and secluded. We were glad that we remembered to apply Off! and I must say that it worked rather well considering we were in a swarm of mosquitoes the entire hike and I only got bit once and it was on my forehead where I had forgotten to put Off!.

Again, I was scared that we would run into a snake. There was one point where Immanuel said, "Look!" and I completely freaked out and took off running thinking that he was pointing out a snake (he was really pointing out a butterfly). I am not sure at all where my fantastic reasoning skills went considering that if he had seen a snake there is absolutely no way he would actually point it out to me for fear that I may never leave the city limits again. He then decided that he should describe what it would be like if he actually did NEED to point out a snake. He said if I was not in danger of coming close and disturbing it he would never point it out. If, however, there was one nearby he said he would firmly say "Stop. Don't move." I then explained that I am not a good listener and now that I know this would be code for snake I would probably run, which, of course, is a poor idea seeing as how THAT would get me bit for sure. Hopefully we will just never see a snake.

Also, since we were in an actual forest this time I had a new fear: bears. I actually asked Immanuel if there was a possibility we might run into bears. Five minutes later he stopped laughing. Fifteen minutes later he yelled, "Lion!" I actually asked, "Where?" and looked around. He, of course, laughed, but I made a quick recovery by explaining I thought it might be a statue of a lion. There were, after all, statues and sculptures throughout this park, so it was a legitimate thought.

Overall the trip was peaceful and nice and I do hope to go back again soon. We didn't see any bears or any snakes. We did, however, see tons of mosquitoes, tiny frogs, and butterflies. The tiny frogs and butterflies were cute, but the mosquitoes I could do without. Thank God for Off!

This is a statue called "The Last Centaur." It was in the middle of the forest, right before a fork in the trail.


















I thought there was beautiful scenery throughout our hike and this picture proves it.











You can barely see it, but there in the middle of the picture is one of those tiny frogs I was talking about.

Lake of the Woods

For our first trip we decided to visit the easiest, shortest biking trail; you can read a short description here. It's only 6.6 miles, and appeared to be downhill most of the way both directions, however that works. We didn't plan ahead very well, so we had to get some supplies before taking off Saturday morning. First, we went to Meijer, but it didn't have the right size tube for my bike, so we had to make a trip to the bike shop, and while at Meijer we were supposed to get sunscreen and Off, but for some reason when we discovered we couldn't get the bike tubes we just left. So we had to go to Meijer again. In the end it took us and hour and a half to get flat fixing equipment, Off, and sunscreen. Finally, we were on the road.

When the author of our book said the hardest part about the trail was finding it, he was not joking. The entrance to the parking lot is unmarked and the driveway butts up against the bike path which has a no motorized vehicle sign visible from the road. We only passed it twice. Once there I had to tighten my bicycle seat, so I got my wrenches out and set to work. I had to set my wrench down several times while adjusting the seat and every single time it would take me about 5 minutes to figure out where I put it. Every time it was Ginnie's fault. She is very distracting. So we loaded our supplies onto my bike and we got going.

The ride was smooth, well shaded by lots of trees and, for the first half of the trail, almost empty due to a light shower. We worried the rain would end our day early, but when it stopped after a short while, we were wishing it would come back to cool us off. Fifteen minutes into the ride, I see some deer right next to the path and stop. I motion Ginnie to stop and tell her to be quiet, and she screams, "Is there a snake?!" Luckily, the deer must be used to people doing that because they didn't seem to care.

Here be the deer.










Next up, there was a cool covered bridge.


Off of the bicycle trail is a nifty little botanical garden. Ginnie took the reins on the camera which she treats like an automatic weapon. Rather than blowing our Picasa quota on our first trip, we picked a handful of pictures to show off.














Unfortunately, we didn't get a picture of the water monster. There was a large raised pool in the gardens, and several times we noticed movement in the water that made the level of the water rise for a moment and overflow. I expected at any moment for giant tentacles to reach and grab Ginnie, and all I could think about was how she had the camera so I would miss an awesome photo.

So ends our first biking trip, injury free, and no snakes.

Hello, World

We have embarked on a journey to become healthier and happier. One way that we are going to achieve these goals is by traveling bike trails and hiking trails throughout the state of Illinois. There are 60 bike trails (from this book) and 107 hiking trails (from here) that we plan to take prior to moving back home to Missouri (hopefully in about 4 to 5 years).

We are not outdoors-type people. We have never been camping. We would have no clue what to do with a fish if we caught one (except attempt to throw the poor thing back in). We have never really been hiking and we have only just begun to take up biking. This will be an interesting journey for the both of us, which is why we have decided to create a blog to document it.

Immanuel is a 26-year-old PhD student studying mathematics. He has Type-I diabetes, which makes our trips more difficult as his blood sugars must be closely monitored. He is currently looking over my shoulder tearing apart my grammar and questioning my every word choice.

I am a 27-year-old speech-language pathologist working in a long-term care setting. I am a chronic worrier and I catastrophize just about everything. My mother-in-law once told me, "Ya know... you're not the 'glass is half-full' kinda gal or the 'glass is half-empty' kinda gal, you're the 'oh my god, we're running out of water and we'll all going to die' kinda gal."

We do not have children yet, but we plan to and I'm sure part of that journey will wind up on this blog as well. We do, however, have 4 fur children.

Petra, our "first born" is an orange tabby who is quite lazy, but love-able. Sonya is a calico who is very well behaved and likes attention on her own terms. Thea, who appears to be somewhat calico and somewhat tabby, is incredibly moody and stubborn. Tesla, their canine brother, is technically the oldest, but was acquired after the above mentioned felines.