We filled our 4 hour drive to/from southern Illinois with books on tape. Charlie Bumpers Versus the Teacher of the Year, Shiloh, and two new Clementine books were all winners.
We drove immediately to the Little Grand Canyon. Staley decided to rename it the "Not So Grand Canyon."
The 3 mile hike was fun, but the highlight was descending into the box canyon and checking out (aka climbing around on) all the rock formations.
The kids love to climb and explore, and this trip did not disappoint. Our rule of thumb: Don't climb up on something unless you know you can get back down. The kids (mostly) followed that rule.
After the Little Grand Canyon, we popped over to the .3 mile walk to Pomona Natural Bridge. Although not really a hike, the natural bridge was very impressive.
We enjoyed a yummy fried chicken dinner at Giant City State Park Lodge before checking into our Air Bnb. We really enjoyed our little house in Galatia. It had a playroom with toys and games, as well as foos ball and ping pong in the garage. The lady also provided breakfast food and snack items. The Pop Tarts and Fruit Loops might have been the highlight of the trip for the kids.
The house was very clean, well-appointed, and spacious with lots of thoughtful little details. The kids were a little turned off by the "old lady-ness" of some of the decor, but other than that, we really enjoyed it.
After sleeping in and taking our time enjoying breakfast and play time, we headed out to start our next day of adventure at Cave in Rock State Park. This was a big cave on the Ohio River that used to be a hideout for pirates.
The kids loved climbing around in the cave (and looking sneaky/tough like pirates, apparently).
The kids probably would have spent all day just playing in this cave if we had let them.
We followed up Cave in Rock with a 1.5 mile hike on the Rim Rock Trail. The highlight: climbing on all the rock formations, of course.
The kids also enjoyed finding small caves and crevices to explore.
Our final outdoor stop of the day was Garden of the Gods. Although the observation trail is only a half mile, we spent well over an hour here as we all climbed and explored.
Garden of the Gods was the busiest of the places we checked out, but it still wasn't bad and we really enjoyed ourselves.
(Here is Staley posing in front of Camel Rock.)
After Garden of the Gods, we stopped for an ice cream treat and a picture with this random Bigfoot statue by the side of the road. I guess it's a southern Illinois thing???
We grabbed carry-out for dinner (Subway for the kids, Mexican for the grown-ups), played some family games, and then Zach and I watched the Bear's game on Zach's phone after the kids went to bed.
Our last day took us back to Giant City State Park for some more hiking before heading home. We hiked the 1 mile Giant City Nature Trail. It was a fun little hike, but the kids kept looking for a long crevice called Fat Man's Squeeze (that I had read about and remembered from a previous trip there in college). They were very pre-occupied with trying to find it during our hike. After we finished the loop and never found it, we deduced that maybe they had filled it in as I read an article from a few years ago about someone being stuck and requiring first responders and a rescue operation. The kids were disappointed that we didn't get to do it, though.
Trillium Trail was our last hike of the trip. It was a 1.3 mile loop. A little more "rugged" and less traveled than the Nature Trail, which we enjoyed. The kids entertained us with some songs as we hiked this trail.
After our hikes, we headed for home while eating our picnic lunch in the car. We made a quick stop at the old Vandalia Statehouse as Adelie had learned about this in her Illinois unit at school and wanted a picture to show her teacher.
We had a great time on our quick little trip south. We explored new places, enjoyed some beautiful weather, and had fun as a family in a new place trying new things. What more could you ask for??
