Giant City State Park

On Saturday morning, after arriving in Illinois on our little road trip, my aunt and uncle treated me and Bex to breakfast at the Giant City Lodge located in a beautiful, 4,000 acre Illinois State Park.  I had requested this little side-trip to show Bex the lodge because my grandfather helped build it as part of the CCC back during the Depression.  Also, my Uncle Moose worked in the park for many years and he gave us the "real" tour!  Here are a few pictures from this beautiful place.

This one is taken inside the great room at the Lodge.  It sports beautiful brick-work and wood-work...oh and several dead animals.

Here's a picture of Bex standing beside one of the HUGE poles that hold up the main part of the building.  This is ONE log!  It's REAL!  Not like those fake ones you see at Disney.

The other end of the great room.  The archways are so pretty with the sun shining in.  Kind of reminded me of an old castle.  I have no idea what "part" of this building my grandfather helped build...doesn't really matter...but I wish I knew.

The next few pictures are taken on the trail TO the Devil's Standing-Table....which we never actually saw.  (These old bones can only hike UP so far!) 

Of course, my monkey-child has no problem climbing ANYTHING!

These bluffs are so pretty!

A look up the trail we were following.

An interesting tree hanging off the bluff.

 

Believe it or not, the trail goes right through here.

 

Yes...Climb OVER the rock and through the creek.

This is me and my Aunt Judy.  She's my mom's youngest sister.  She's short like my mom.  She retired from a long nursing career and now takes care of grandchildren and her husband, Uncle Moose!

Do you have any idea what THIS little green thingy is?  It's a Paw-paw.  Remember the children's song about "pickin up paw-paws puttin them in a basket"?  Well, here you go.  Aunt Judy says they taste like rotten bananas...hmmm...I'll probably pass on trying this one!  After a wonderful "truck" tour of the park, we headed back towards home.

But on the way home, we couldn't get past this beautiful peach orchard.  After driving down some of the rows, Uncle Moose just happened to have the telephone number of the guy who owns it.  So, after a quick call, we were given permission to pick some of the beauties!  Did I mention, we just "happened" to have some 5-gallon buckets in the back of the truck?

 

Some of these beauties were the size of softballs!

I don't know whether I put as many in the bucket as I dropped...but I tried.  It didn't take us long to fill up a couple of buckets!

After picking his bucket full, here Uncle Moose is "testing" the product.  They were YUMMY!

Stay tuned....more Illinois trip coming your way....