Our next destination is West Bend Wisconsin. Each summer, the town has a mega geocaching event that brings 100's of cachers to the area. Our schedule won't have us in town for the event, but there are plenty of good caches to attempt none-the-less. The drive will be about 600 miles and keeping with our "not in a hurry" pace, we decide to break it into three 200 mile days.
Our first day gets us most of the way across Indiana with a stop in Crawfordsville. It's just a Walmart, but it is miles off the expressway so road noise is minimal. We park right next to a pond (okay just a retention pond) and discover they have a reasonable wi-fi signal. I had not planned on being here so I didn't have nearby caches loaded yet. When I checked, the nearest cache was 8 feet away!!! Sure enough, I look out the window and there is a lamp post right there. LPCs are not our favorite but it will do. Hope no other cachers came by hoping to log this one while we were here.
This is our sunset view at Walmart
We selected a campground for our next stop. Hickory Hollow near Utica Illinois is part of Passport America so it is only half price for the night. We got in early enough to explore the area and discovered there are multiple state parks within a short drive and Illinois does not charge to visit them! Our first destination was Starved Rock State Park - voted #1 attraction in Illinois. We stopped at the visitor center and caught the last half of the video talking about the history of the park.
Now to explore the park a bit and do some of the geocaches and earth caches. One of our destinations was a cache with 60+ favorite points. IL River Byway Starved Rock Lodge cache was supposed to be some elaborate Italian bench but as much as we looked, we couldn't seem to find it! We decided to head into the lodge to ask about it only to discover the bench just inside the door.
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There were also some trail hikes both at Starved Rock and nearby Matthiessen State Park. Since I was nursing a sore leg, we limited our hike to just two earth caches. The first is named St Louis Canyon. The first quarter mile is simply down a closed road to the former parking lot. As we start the trail we discover sand in between all the rocks. Not just any sand but the kind you would find on some beautiful Florida beach. We followed the trail along a little stream for a bit longer and started to here two things - the sound of people laughing and falling water. As we came around the bend we were greeted with the sight of a 80 foot tall waterfall. It turns out the type of sandstone here produces the fine sand found all downstream of the falls.
Next was a walk to the Giant Bathtub in Matthiessen State Park. We had a little trouble with our navigation using the handheld GPSr once we were down at water level. Probably a function of the tall walls on either side of us. Eventually we just followed the trail signs and headed towards the voices of others already enjoying the "Bathtub". On our way there, we spotted this tree that was still managing to hang on even though a large portion of its roots were exposed.
Even though the campgrounds are nearly on top of I-80, we were in one of the sites at the rear and had the air conditioning on so we had a good night sleep for the drive into West Bend.
Love your posts!! Keep them coming!
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