Road Trip 2025 Intro & Starved Rock
Next: Idaho Springs, Colorado
Road Trip 2025
Our road trip this year includes driving to the southwest part of the U.S. The plan is to visit a few national parks in Utah, Colorado, and Arizona, plus Monument Valley in Utah/Arizona. We have campground reservations for Zion and Bryce national parks, as that was all I could secure via Recreation.gov. But we hope to also hit Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Mesa Verde, Canyonlands, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, and Saguaro national parks. We start off by visiting friends at their house rental in Idaho Springs, Colorado for a few nights of the second week of April, and end the trip meeting up with college friends and spouses in Scottsdale, Arizona the first week of May. On the final stretch home we will spend a couple of nights at our apartment share downtown Chicago…if we remember the key to the apartment (foreshadowing?).
April 5
Starved Rock State Park
With the Yakima cargo box filled with our camping gear, and the Jeep Cherokee filled with everything else, we headed out from home in South Haven, Michigan at around 11:00 a.m. It was about 45 degrees and cloudy.
Less than three hours later we made our first (unplanned) stop. We pulled into Starved Rock State Park along the Illinois River near Utica, Illinois.
This free state park is the most visited state park in Illinois. The trails are family and dog friendly, and most of the main sites are within a total of 5 miles of hiking. Fortunately this is really early in the season and so, even for a Saturday it was not very crowded. The half empty parking lot is huge, and there is even overflow parking, and parking for those staying at the sizeable lodge. It obviously greets lots of people so we felt lucky to be here at this slow time. Temps were in the 50s by now so it was comfortably cool weather for hiking.
We first visited the well-staffed visitors center for insights on the trails, as we usually do. The main trail is really one big 5-mile loop with short spur trails to overlooks or waterfalls all along it. All of the spurs looped back to the main trail… simple enough. We opted for 4 miles of the main loop.
The trails were a combination of boardwalk, cement paved, and mostly hard pack dirt trails. Given that is had just rained hard the past couple of days there was mud on some parts of the hike, but also it meant that the various waterfalls were flowing well.
First stop, very close to the visitor center was the actual Starved Rock and its Illinois River overlook. Though this is the namesake historical point of interest it is not a visual highlight of the park in our eyes, and the pictures we took were just as unremarkable…so no pics. Better pics overlooking the Illinois river are forthcoming, however.
French Canyon
Onward to the first waterfall, at French Canyon. We could hear the water a ways before actually seeing it. As we approached, it became a bit of a slippery scramble along a narrow dirt path to reach, but well worth the effort, and the wet shoes and the soiled jeans. The entrance passes a picturesque smaller waterfall.
This brought us to inside a confined circular sandstone canyon with walls about 40′ high all around. There is a pool of water in which the 40-foot waterfall was crashing. This is really cool.
Wildcat Canyon
From here we found our way to the top of the waterfall at Wildcat Canyon. We could see people below, and figured that at some point we’d make our way there, though we weren’t sure exactly how yet.
Then to Sandstone Point overlook.
Then to Lonetree Canyon, where we walked down a very tall set of stairs to reach the River trail along the bank of the Illinois River. This is where we started the return loop.
Not far along the river we found the trail that led to the bottom of the falls at Wildcat Canyon. Great view of the falls and layered rock formations from here.
Returning to the River trail, heading back, Emilie dipped her hand in the Illinois River to continue her tradition of touching all major bodies of water that we come near to on our adventures. We finished up the 4 miles by climbing up many steps to Eagle Cliff overlook and the adjacent Lovers Leap overlook. Here we got our final views of the river, and we also could see Starved Rock outcropping from here.
We bought a cargo box sticker and a refrigerator magnet back at the visitors and then headed off to find some dinner. The state park was a great stop. We can see why it is so popular with the locals. We think we really lucked out that it was still too early in the season for the crowds, and that the weather and waterfall flow were great.
It was now 4:30 p.m. and we were about 90 minutes out of Davenport, Iowa so we figured on eating dinner there somewhere. Based on some online research, The Machine Shed Restaurant is a local legend in Davenport. Unfortunately when we arrived at 6:00 p.m. on a Saturday night they were way packed. It would be a 30 minute wait to be seated. We were pretty hungry so decided not to wait.
Apple Maps showed Smokin’ Butt BBQ about a mile down the road so we headed there. Turns out, this is a small mom & pop fast order counter within the Red Hawk Golf and Learning Center in Yorkville, Illinois…and they’re only open on weekends. It was perfect! BBQ ribs, coleslaw and beans served in about 5 minutes. We were done eating a fine BBQ dinner by the time we would have gotten seated at the Machine Shed. We grabbed some ice cream nearby for dessert and made our way to the Fairfield Inn in Iowa City to spend the night.
After checking in to the motel we got in the car to check out the nearby campus of the University of Iowa, and find a place to get a drink that was NOT overrun by college students. We found civility at Brix Cheese Shop and Wine Bar just off the main action of the very hopping university area. This was a great, quiet, relaxing find. After a nice cheeseboard and drinks served by a wonderful server we walked around downtown. We came to the conclusion that we are really happy to not be college age anymore.
Back to the Fairfield for bed.
Next: Idaho Springs, Colorado
