No saggy watches here, just some good and bad news about memory, some stories and photos, and yet another change of plans as this journey nears its end.
As I left Iowa City this morning I pointed Chatty Kathy the GPS and Penny the Prius toward Starved Rock State Park in north central Illinois, just a few miles off the direct route to Urbana. This park was one of my favorites as a child - a very long drive from home in Indiana but with dramatic views from atop deliciously scary cliffs and exciting stories about the original Indian inhabitants. I hadn't been there for the better part of 60 years.
On the way I planned to leave I-80 and see the Mississippi up close from the Davenport levees, but a message sign a few miles out warned of lane closings and major delays so I took the I-280 southern bypass instead. Suddenly there was the Mississippi bridge with no place to stop, so I took the first Illinois exit and groped my way to the levee in Andalusia seven miles south. Kelly's Landing didn't provide dramatic views but anyway here's an eastern channel of the Mississippi, looking downriver with the Illinois shore at the left, a large island on the right, and in the distance the Iowa shore somewhere towards Muscatine.
Then on to Starved Rock, 2 1/2 hours from Iowa City. And here's where I found lots of surprises. Those towering bare cliffs looking down on a tiny Illinois River below and a broad plain of grass or maybe cropland beyond the river turned out to be heavily forested to the top and only moderately high, looking down on a broad river with more forest beyond. And yes, you're right: that's three dams in three days. This one has a lock on the far side, as the Illinois is part of an important waterway connecting the Mississippi and the Great Lakes.
Here's a view of Starved Rock itself from another cliff upstream called Lover's Leap. If you look closely
(click to enlarge the image, still about 1/6 the original size) you'll see that the top tier of the formation is actually the wooden railing of the boardwalk that the state wisely added atop the old trail, and you can see people here and there behind it. The bottom of the cliff meets the river where its reflection adds to its apparent height. I'm guessing that the cliff edge is no more that 50-60 feet above the river, though it sure felt like I climbed more than six stories' worth of steps in the 90-degree-plus heat and humidity.
Here's my theory for what it's worth: if our first trip was when Jack and I were three and four years old respectively I had not yet received my first pair of glasses. My view of the river and its farther bank was blurry, though as with other memories from that period I had no idea then of the reason why I was missing things that others were seeing. Though we went back in later years that early memory is what I retain.
From Starved Rock the drive to Urbana was two hours. I visited my old friend Kristen, her husband Peter whom I'd met only at their wedding in 2004, and their daughters Kayla (3 1/2) and Samantha (just a year old). It was nap time so I headed out after getting some sightseeing suggestions and making plans to meet for dinner. My first stop was Crystal Lake Park in Urbana, where the shade of huge trees did little to help with the heat until I discovered the cool spray from this fountain. When I later mentioned my surprise that it wasn't full of playing children, Kristen noted wryly that it's actually not for play but part of the city sewage treatment system. Ewwww.
Then I drove 20 miles north to Rantoul, the home of Chanute Air Force Base that I may have visited once before as a 10-year-old riding with my father on his rounds as a salesman for industrial cleaning solvents, one of his many jobs in those years. My brother got some of his advanced electronics training there in the mid-1960s as an Air Force recruit just out of basic training in Texas. The former airbase is now a civilian airport and my destination today, the
Octave Chanute Air Museum, had just closed for the day.
At the side of the museum I got this view of the cold front that had just passed through, lowering the temperature in minutes from 91 degrees to 73 and dumping torrents of rain on the highway. Toto, we aren't in the West anymore! The rain had almost stopped when I shot this photo, but...
A few minutes later when I stopped to photograph this old bomber at the edge of the airfield the rain was again coming down hard. If you can identify the plane please let me know - I haven't found it after a long search of military aircraft images.
Tonight I got back together with Kristen and her family for dinner at one of their favorite spots. The
Courier Cafe opened in 1980 a year after the Courier Newspaper in the same space went out of business. Wonderful friendly staff, very kid-friendly (a must for our group), and my southern fried chicken would have been perfect if they had salted it much less.
Tomorrow I plan two or three visits in the Chicago area. Two days later I hope to arrive at my cousin Dorothy's in eastern Pennsylvania. After attending a neighborhood potluck lunch there Sunday I'll head for DC, arriving home Sunday evening. Unless another promising side trip turns up...
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