Trail of Tears SF, Union County SFWA, Devil’s Island SFWA, and Cape Bend SFWA

Day five of our trip down to Carbondale was our busiest day yet, at least in terms of numbers of parks visited. First up was Trail of Tears State Forest, followed by three Fish and Wildlife Areas all located off highway 3, close to the Missouri border: Union County SFWA, Devil’s Island SFWA, and Cape Bend SFWA. During the planning process, we found that the three SFWAs were all hunting reserves and unlikely to have hiking, which is why we decided to do all three of them in one go. We added the state forest both because it made sense geographically, but also because the hiking available would not be so strenuous.

Trail of Tears SF is the closest park to Chicago, at 5 hours and 40 minutes, and it is about half an hour south of Carbondale. The remaining parks are between 10 and 20 minutes further south.

After briefly getting mixed up and driving past the entrance to Trail of Tears, we decided to spur-of-the-moment drive to a local attraction known as Bald Knob. It is a large cross built on a hill overlooking the surrounding area. It is really neat, but you do need to take a somewhat narrow and very windy road to get there.

Somewhat confusingly, there is a Trail of Tears State Park located across the border in Missouri relatively close by, but it makes sense given that both the Missouri park and the Illinois state forest are named after the horrible event where the US Army displaced members of the Cherokee, Creek, and Chickasaw nations, forcing them to into reservations in the Oklahoma Territory. Hundreds of people died due to cold and starvation.

Once we finally arrived at Trail of Tears SF, we had planned to do the CCC Heritage trail, but decided at the last minute to do the Tree Discovery Trail instead. On AllTrails, all of the trails are rated as moderate, except for the fire trail loops. The Tree Discovery Trail is only a half-mile loop, but it is much steeper than we are accustomed to. It is definitely not a trail for beginners, despite its short length. However, it was very pretty and well worth going. This is the third state forest we have been to, and so far it is our favorite.

After finishing up at Trail of Tears SF, we headed to the three SFWAs. Because none of these parks had hiking, there is not too much to say about any of them. Union County was the first we stopped at, and was definitely the most easily accessible of the three. In fact, all three of these parks are administered out of Union County. What we saw of this park was very pretty, and we found out later that there is a refuge area within the park that is limited to sightseeing and photography.

The day we visited, Devil’s Island SFWA and Cape Bend SFWA were both inaccessible due to flooding. With Devil’s Island, it was unclear if it would have been accessible without a boat regardless. We were only able to drive on a gravel road that partially ran around the perimeter. Cape Bend’s entrance was completely flooded. There is no information regarding either of these parks that does not relate to hunting.

We have four businesses to talk about, to correspond to the four parks. We had started the  morning at Kiki’s Coffee House, in Anna, IL. It was a really cute coffee shop that was very busy the day we were there. It is definitely the place to go first thing in the morning.

After hiking was finished for the day, we went to Alto Vineyards located in Alto Pass. We found this winery because of its proximity to Bald Knob. They have outdoor seating, which we had to skip that day because of the cold winds in that area, but the wine was good and they had a winery cat named Juniper.

Keeping with the theme of wineries with cats, our next winery was Owl Creek Vineyards with their cat named Remy. What made this winery unique, and the reason we wanted to include it was that in addition to wine, they also specialize in cider. They had a very good selection of both, covering the full spectrum from very dry to very sweet. They also have food there, it was really nice to have lunch here.

Finally, the most exciting find for us was Honey Heist Mead. This place was very small and understated, but the mead was excellent. All of the flavors we tried were unique and well executed, and it is definitely worth the visit if you are in the Carbondale area.

Although this part of the trip was the day where we had the most things to do, I would say it was not really the most difficult set of parks we’ve done in a single day. If you are in the area and considering visiting any of these four, the only one that is really worth going to is Trail of Tears State Forest, unless you are a hunter. And while the state forest is the nicest out of this bunch, it is also one of the most difficult hikes we’ve done. It is not a park for a beginner. Even so, it was a beautiful day and it felt good to get so much done.