We broke away from the never ending projects that come with building a new house (another post on that later) to run down to Southern Illinois for a bit. We need to start getting the kids to hike on their own as they are both getting to be a bit too heavy for carry around these days. So we choose the Nature Trail at Giant City (PDF of Brochure) :
Continue reading Giant City State Park Nature Trail Hike 7-22-18
After suffering a bit of cabin fever, the weather broke and allowed us to get out this past weekend for a bit of a hike. This was the boy’s first “Big Boy” hike and he managed to hike the full two miles all by himself. He had a few falls, but overall it went very well!
We hiked the overlook trail as well as the Hogsback trail down the bluff:
Both kids started out strong and made it up to the top of the overlook trail:
And of course, stabbing and cracking ice was too much fun to resist!
Nice view from the overlook:
After leaving the overlook, we headed down the hogsback trail:
Lots of fun little bridges on the way down:
The rosy cheeked boy was very tired by the end of the trail:
Klondike park was a very nice little park and I hope to make the trip out that way again with the bike sometime in the future to do a bit more exploring!
We started out early on a Saturday morning with hopes of beating the heat and pointed the nose of The Mighty Merc down Bluff Road:
As we pulled into the parking lot, the hopes of beating the hopes of beating the heat were quickly dashed as it was warm and humid:
But we loaded the kids on our backs and pressed on heading up the Salt Lick Trail which winds its way up to the top of the bluff:
It wasn’t long before the boy wanted to do some hiking of his own:
After working up a good sweat, we were rewarded with a great view overtop of the hill prairie:
We continued on the ridge of the bluff for a while before it turned back into the woods:
It wasn’t long before both kids wanted to do some hiking of their own. It was a textbook case of monkey see monkey do:
Winding our way back down the bluff:
We were greeted with the sight of lots of black eyed susans in full bloom:
And eventually popped out by the old mining building near the parking lot:
Map of the hike:
With some time to kill, and desiring to do a bit more exploring, we wandered the level road a bit:
Until we got to the General Store in Mayestown:
