My Golden Birthday Gift: Preparing Our First Trip

Illinois got blanketed in ice on Saturday night.

Preparing Our First Trip

            Once again I found myself on the Exploring Illinois website, but rather than searching by name, I was searching by region.  The southeast region to be exact.  My heart raced when I saw the list of over a dozen parks appear for the region.  I needed to look at each park, locate it on the map, and then determine which ones I wanted to visit most, how long to stay at each one, and where we should sleep while down there. 

            I remembered one park that had a pool and a lodge.  The combination sounded promising to me so I checked my notes and found pool listed under Dixon Springs, a part-day park with two trails and locations with funny names.  Keeping this location in mind I started down the list of southeast region parks.

            I already had notes on a few of these parks, and some of them with strike-through indicating that previously I didn’t think the park was worth the trip.  Now that we were going to be here a couple days I didn’t want to rule any place out without a second look.

            The southwest region covers a lot of area.  Using my fingers to mark the distance between my house and the University of Illinois I marked off two hours of distance from Dixon Springs.  Most likely we would want to pick our parks from this radius so we wouldn’t spend too much time in the car while on our mini-vacation.

            Delighted, I saw that Cache River state park fit.  It is a marshy area unlike anything I’ve seen in Illinois before, with 18 miles of trails mostly over water.  My only concern is rain; if it rains too much here before we arrive there won’t be much for us to see and some trails may be closed.  My notes label this as an all day park.

            Since we are spending two nights down south our first and last days will have to be part day parks giving us one day to spend at an all day.  The trouble arises when I take another look at Ferne Clyffe, a park that grabs my attention since I added ‘fun’ in its description.  Which park should I choose for our all day?  I decided to think about that later and went back to looking at the other parks in the area.

            I quickly scratch off three in a row as they are for hunting and boating.  When my list is finished I have seven parks on my list.  There are a couple I had to ignore because they were too far away.  I highlight three in blue, and two in yellow.  I have my five parks.

            Naturally Ferne Clyffe is in blue, and Dixon Springs since it will be our main base.  My third is Fort Massac.  Apparently I had skipped over this name in my earlier search because I became very excited when I looked at its description.  Not only is it a historical site with replicas of old barracks and nice short strolls along the Ohio River but it’s right on the edge of a very special city.

            Unless you know the history of how superheroes have affected my life it will be hard to understand my excitement at knowing that we will be within minutes of Metropolis and the Superman Museum rumored to have a large statue of the man of steel himself nearby.  Giddy with excitement I made sure to record the museum’s hours of operation with a plan to get us there at any cost.  Even if I have to beg, I will get a picture of myself flying beside the man of steel.

            Surprisingly, Cache River earned yellow.  While I would love to visit and capture images of all the shimmering water, I don’t know if we will have time, and I really want to make Ferne Clyffe our full day.  Cave-In-Rock got the second yellow vote since my sister was obviously excited upon hearing about it.  This park is also smaller and the farthest away, so I couldn’t make it blue and get my hopes up.

            We ended up waiting until the next day to talk about the parks.  I had already told my mom, but now I told Dad.  He heard all five names; I described their locations and told him about the lodge.  He quickly ruled out the lodge for expense reasons but he agreed to all five parks.  Smiling, we ended the conversation.  I got all five parks when I was only bargaining for three.

            With less than a week to prepare we needed to find a hotel and directions to all of the parks.  It was decided that we would leave on Tuesday, May 27 and stay two nights to return on Thursday.

            When Dad got home the next day he pulled out the road map to double check which parks I wanted, and once again I took him through the list, pointing out the parks as I described them.  He talked about hitting Ferne Clyffe on our way down there and my heart sank.  I explained that I wanted to make that our full day, he understood and agreed.  We would stop at Cache River on Tuesday instead.

            Dad informed me that we could leave home before breakfast and catch something to eat on the way down so that we could have more time to spend there since he knew I also wanted ample time to explore Cache River.  Thinking about it now makes me very excited at the prospect of getting pictures of the sunset reflecting on the watery paths.

            What he said next had me bouncing in my seat.  He is looking for a hotel in Metropolis.  This will give us plenty of time to explore the city!  Wednesday will be spent at Ferne Clyffe, and if we have time we might visit either Dixon Springs or Fort Massac so that on Thursday we can visit the remaining two parks.

            Dad pointed out other parks on the map asking me why I didn’t choose them and I gave him my reasoning why I didn’t like them or told him that they hadn’t been listed on the website.  I then pointed out Forbes Lake which was northward.  I told him it had a beach and looked interesting.  He thought about it and said that we could try to hit it on our way home if we had time.

            Now I have less than twenty-four hours to prepare to visit six parks in three days and sleep in the city of Superman.  I could not be more excited!

            Mom spent today looking through the descriptions of the parks and the type of wildlife we can expect.  She is excited about the cypress trees in Cache River, but she is not at all thrilled with the idea of all the snakes that live down south.  Already she is chiding us about staying on the marked paths and wearing bug repellent.  This is my adventure therefore I plan to disregard all of her warnings and worry.  I will wear sunscreen, I will drench myself in repellent, I will pack a bathing suit, and I will explore nature’s wonders to my heart’s content.