Southern Exploration

The last half of August and first part of September were much cooler than normal, which is delaying the maturation of the crops.  Since harvest will be delayed, we decided on the spur of the moment to head down to Southern Illinois to the Shawnee National Forest and do some exploring for a few days.  We had never spent much time in Southern Illinois because it is always so hot and humid down there in the summer, that we avoid it.  If we go south in the summer we want to be on big water. But since the weather was cool it made for a perfect time to hike, picnic and explore.  Once down there we felt like we were in a different state!  Lots of hills, forest, wildlife, and quaint small towns seen from two lane and sometimes gravel roads.  The area we were in is so sparsely populated that many whole counties have less population than our local towns.

Bigfoot welcomed us to Shawnee!

We did a lot of hiking on various types of trails.

And we saw a lot of interesting and beautiful rock formations and cliffs.

Here is the camel often seen on tourism literature.

We stayed in a couple of log cabins, one a historic cabin built by the CCC during the Great Depression at Giant City State Park.

The Lodge.

We squeezed through some tight spots while hiking, but "Fat Man's Squeeze" was closed due to snake migration this time of year.

We enjoyed exploring through the small towns.  We ate fresh caught Ohio River catfish one night for supper on a barge restaurant.  We also enjoyed the small town patriotism.

We also explored numerous caves along our hikes.

The Shawnee Hills.

Illinois Iron Furnace.

A beautiful picnic spot at Pounds Hollow.

All in all we hiked or visited Ferne Cliff State Park, Bell Smith Springs, Garden of the Gods, Rim Rock, Pounds Hollow, Cave-In-Rock State Park, Iron Furnace, Dixon Springs State Park, Heron Pond/Cache River Wetlands, and Giant City State Park.  The hiking sticks and hiking shoes were put to good use!  We traveled some on the Trail of Tears route, and crossed the River to River Trail and the Tunnel Hill State Trail.  There is a lot more to see down south, and I hope we get the opportunity to travel back some day to see what we missed and revisit our favorite spots.

For the Lord thy God hath blessed thee in all the works of thy hand: he knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness: these forty years the Lord thy God hath been with thee; thou hast lacked nothing.
Deuteronomy 2:7