To Illinois and back, with love

Well, it’s been a little while, eh? Since we last spoke I’ve published three Mini-Guides (check them out here, where you can buy yours), done about a dozen hikes, and pulled approximately 10 million weeds out of our back yard. I have also begun the largest writing project I’ve ever attempted (no details to share yet). It’s been a busy time. Please know that I have not forgotten about this blog, nor have I forgotten about you!

Things have been pretty warm and pretty cool lately. Check out this photo I took from the summit of Cook Hill last week, on a very windy evening with my buddy Keith:

But all of the past month can wait. I promised you an essay on my trip back to Illinois, so here you go. The Land of Lincoln was a great time as always.

Many years ago I was on a hike with a few friends when the subject of what the most beautiful state in the US came up in conversation. Some of you have heard me talk about this before, and at least one of you was on that hike with me. We ultimately determined that Alaska was the most beautiful state in the US, followed closely by Oregon, Washington, California, Oregon, Hawaii, and Utah. Realistically though, you can make an argument for any one of those states, and probably also for Colorado and Montana. The argument for the least beautiful state in the US was just as lively: while I argued for Florida repeatedly to come in last (do I even need to explain myself here?), we ultimately decided that Kansas would be number 50. I still don’t feel good about that one, and I know a few of you were not happy about that. Sorry!

Throughout this process, I continually argued that Illinois should not be in the bottom ten, and I still feel this quite strongly. Illinois is a much more beautiful place than most people would believe, including most residents of the Land of Lincoln. I think much of this comes from how little Illinois residents actually explore their state. Yes, I know that some of you out there know the state quite well, but most Land of Lincolners out there only ever see the state while driving through it on their way somewhere warmer or more interesting. After all, what else do you see when driving through the state other than an endless series of corn fields and occasional creepy novelties like the Effingham Cross:

But Illinois is much more than all of this.

When we moved back to Illinois in 1997, I was 16 and thoroughly loved hiking and camping after spending the previous nine years of my childhood mostly in Oregon. I had also spent parts of the summers of 1989-1995 in Jacksonville, Illinois with my dad and his family, though the only places we ever went were to visit their family in Olney and to the occasional Cardinals game or random theme park. On the subject of Olney, and also on the subject of very random Illinois factoids, Olney is primarily known for being the home of the albino squirrel. Isn’t America grand? I saw plenty of them over my many visits to my home state.

So when we moved back to Illinois, my stepdad and I set about finding places to hike and camp in Illinois. There are quite a few places to hike and camp in Illinois, from campgrounds on lakes that serve as a cooling pool for a nuclear plant to the bluffs and rolling hills in southern Illinois that form the Shawnee National Forest. Some of the places we explored became favorites of mine, such as Sand Ridge State Forest south of Peoria. Sand Ridge is still a favorite of mine after all these years out here in Oregon. But we never got back to the Shawnee during this time, and after moving back out here, the Shawnee National Forest. With that in mind, I decided to plan a vacation with my family to southern Illinois for this Spring Break.

We decided to make Carbondale our home base for this trip. Both my brother and stepfather went to Southern Illinois University, so they were already familiar with the area. Speaking of Southern Illinois University, the school has one of the more random and awesome mascots of any school in the US: the Saluki! This is a Saluki:

According to Wikipedia:

Anyway, both my brother and stepdad went to SIU so they knew the area already. For both of them, it was something like a homecoming. Our first night there we went our for pizza, and my stepdad pointed out that the business next door to the pizza place was the pharmacy he used to go to back when he lived in Carbondale in the early 70s. My brother took the time to point out where his frat house was, which has since been demolished.

I mentioned in my last post that I hadn’t been to Carbondale since I drove down there with a couple friends to go see Wilco play a free show there in 2003, while I was in college. Before that, I had gone on a backpacking trip on the River to River Trail early in my college years. Before that even, the only time I had gone to Southern Illinois was on a trip with my mom and stepdad, before they were even married and before we moved to Oregon, to Garden of the Gods and Cave-In-Rock when I was about 6. We were all long overdue to visit the area, even if we weren’t going to do much hiking.

We went to Giant City on Tuesday, a park I’d never actually been to before. Giant City is the closest park to Carbondale, and is quite popular as a result. My brother led us on a short hike around some of the bluffs and narrow crevices in the rocks for which the park is known. The hike turned out to be steeper and a little longer than expected, which made it tougher for my parents. But it was beautiful! We saw lots of early spring flowers, among them these three beauties:

Here’s my brother and stepdad at the top of a long flight of stairs on the hike:

After the hike we stopped at the visitor center, where I got to meet the Amazing Larry:

The Amazing Larry was a snake (and I’m forgetting which species, unfortunately) that the rangers found in the visitors center and were finally able to trap after two months. I love snakes, which the rangers found amusing since most people recoil in horror or disgust. Snakes are awesome! I think Barry White said it best:

After the hike we went to Feather Hills Winery, which was excellent. We all bought bottles of their excellent Totality sparkling wine to take home. I am pleased to report that my bottle made the trip home to Oregon just fine, and I am looking forward to opening it on a hot day sometime this summer.

The next day we went out to Garden of the Gods, which as mentioned above I had not visited since I was 6 years old. That first time must have been pretty memorable, because I was surprised to learn that I remembered some of that day. It was probably the first time I ever visited anywhere that was truly different, and truly natural and wild.

It was stunning, as stunning as any place in Illinois or in the Midwest:

Obviously I was very happy to be there, as you see in the photo that accompanies this post:

One of the goals of this trip was to finally get a nice family photo for the first time in many years. I think we succeeded here!

I could have spent hours exploring the various bluffs, viewpoints, and side trails at Garden of the Gods. I could easily share dozens of photos of how neat this place is, but this one really captures it:

It was a deeply satisfying day and one I will savor for the rest of my life.

When it came time to leave Carbondale, I was sad to leave but also happy for the next step of my adventure. I was going to take the train home, all the way back to Portland!

It ended up being kind of anticlimactic. I mostly sat in my seat and worked on my mini-guides. I saw Border Patrol nearly pull a guy off the train because his papers weren’t in order. We live in fucked-up times. But mostly I just sat and wrote, because writing is all I want to do right now other than hike and complete my school year. I’m sure some of you can understand.

Thanks for reading - I’ll have more to say soon.

Much love,

Matt