Two girls trying to see the world, one nature walk at a time.
Park 17 on our journey was Kankakee River State Park, about an hour and a half south of us. While this one is actually fairly close compared to some other places, we kept overlooking it in favor of the parks that are clustered together. For example, there are several along the Illinois River which meant... Continue Reading →
During initial planning for this project, we knew we would need to spend a lot of time just west of Rockford. Neither of us had been to that area before, and we knew very little about the terrain. We knew the rolling hills around Galena, and the many canyons of Starved Rock; but how do... Continue Reading →
With spring truly here, we decided to head up north one more time to check out Moraine Hills State Park and McHenry Dam. This park is located in McHenry county, about an hour away from us. The landscape is very similar to nearby Volo Bog and Chain O' Lakes, with the same glacier movement forming... Continue Reading →
With the weather finally getting nice, we decided to head out to the park that started it all, Matthiessen State Park. While Steph had visited in 2020 with another friend, the only time I had visited was that very first girl’s trip in 2019, so we were both looking forward to visiting again. Being only... Continue Reading →
Now that we're well into planning our hikes for 2022, we wanted to look back on the parks we've visited already, and share our thoughts on where our favorite experiences were. Best Hike Steph: Even though it was our most difficult, I liked the hiking at Apple River Canyon. It felt like a true nature... Continue Reading →
For our final park-specific post of the year, we wanted to highlight what ended up being one of the most special places we’ve been, and go back in time to the other park we visited on our Galena trip. That park was Mississippi Palisades, named for the steep cliffs that border the Mississippi River. We... Continue Reading →
With the season drawing to a close and the cold weather looming, we wanted to get a couple more parks in while we still could. The ones we did that day were Illini State Park and William Stratton State Park, mostly for their small size. We started our morning by driving the hour and a... Continue Reading →
October 29th brought our first major dilemmas. 1) We had plans that evening and didn't want to wear ourselves out and 2) it was raining a bit. A good solution to this was to go to Channahon State Park, because it is very small and not very far away. Originally, this park was known as... Continue Reading →
Our big plans finally started with this trip. We knew that the majority would require overnight stays, and this was the first one we planned. We decided to focus on the Galena area, because that was the town we were in when we first came up with this project. We also knew that area would... Continue Reading →
After a week off for other obligations and a big weekend for this project coming up, we found ourselves with a single day to go to one of the random parks we hadn't made specific plans for. We picked Volo Bog State Natural Area because it was a little smaller than our other options, but... Continue Reading →
Fresh Air Friendship 