Little Grand Canyon, IL

We visited the Little Grand Canyon park twice, once with Caedmon and once just by ourselves.  I admit, I was a bit skeptical at first.  How do you have a "little" Grand Canyon, and how do you have that in ILLINOIS of all places?  I think "little gorge" might be better, but while the name might be a litte misleading, the park is still really cool.

Once you enter, there's a little bit of a hike down to the main attraction, which is the little gorge/canyon/valley.  If you visit within 3-5 days of a rainstorm, a small stream runs through the center, but you don't want to be there during one (or even shortly after one) as its prone to flooding and the rocks are extremely slippery.

The rock facing is quite beautiful.  Massive rocks are lined and pock-marked with holes of various sizes.  You'll have to excuse me, I'm no geologist, but either way, it's really cool to go and look at the rock formations.  My photos don't adequately cover it.

 

The first time we went, it was too went to proceed all the way along the trails.  The second time we went, it was much nicer, we were by ourselves, and we'd been having a bit of draught, so we were able to walk the trails a lot more.  We followed the gorge down and took the trail through the forest, climbing back up towards where we started.  And on the way, we met a wild boar, of all things!  Tired and dirty as we were, I think we finished off that day at a winery!

Read more »

Chicago, IL

Nate and I went to Chicago a couple of times, but on this trip, we went up and visited with some of his friends from Moody, then set out and hit the streets to see some of the sights.

It had all started with an email invitation from his friends at Moody, and after I expressed my interest to go along, the trip was on.  We took the train up, and ran into relatively few delays (considering our luck with Amtrak).

I don't really consider myself a city girl, but I really enjoyed walking around the town.  Maybe it was just the fact that finals were going on and I needed a study break, but it was a very nice break.

We started off walking around the lake, and the weather was quite cooperative.  We found a little "beach" and had fun writing in the sand and collecting shells.

From the beach, we continued on, chatting along the way and enjoying the scenery.  Our next stop: Navy Pier.

We walked around for a little while longer, taking in the sites, then headed to Buckingham Fountain.  We had fun taking some pictures and rested our legs for a while.

On our way back, we grabbed some classic Chicago style food, then met up with some more of Nate's old friends.  We hung around for a while before grabbing some Starbucks and catching our train home.

Read more »

Chicago, IL

Nate and I went to Chicago a few times while we were dating.  We would take the train up from Champaign and stay with his buddies in Moody or head back down later the same day.

Until then, I'd only really gone to the city for other events: a football game, a baseball game, visiting the field museum, going to navy pier.  So our outings were the first time I really got to experience the city.  

On our trips, we went to the pier, walked along Michigan Ave, visited the cathedral, walked along lake Michigan, sampled some of the best hot dogs and deep dish pizza around, visited my first Starbucks, and went up in the Hancock building.  We also visited with his friends in the dorms.

Read more »