Fun!

Our small group went to Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois, including Garden of the gods, Rim Rock, and Cave In Rock. Rubi, Elizabeth, and I went with.
We had a great time!
Rubi sister Sara kept the little kiddos while we were there. (Thanks Sara!)

I've uploaded some small versions of our pictures. There's 40 there. In all, Rubi and I took 95 pictures. Here's a slideshow.

We had a great time, and we'd love to take Alexander there some time (when he's a bit bigger). He'd love to climb all over the rocks. Catherine, on the other hand, would probably be upset about getting dirty.

We left town about 9:30 am. First we went to Rim Rock. I really liked this place. Lots of climbing, walking around in the forest, a nice stream flowing through the area, and apparently this area has trailheads into other areas that we didn't investigate as we were doing three short visits yesterday.

After Rim Rock, we drove up the road to Garden of the gods, parked and had a picnic lunch, then walked in the park. Lots of climbing again, more fretting from me about Elizabeth getting too close to the edge and running around without an adult near, and more great scenery.

After Gotg, we drove to the Ohio River to see Cave In Rock. Very cool. I like caves, and this was a nice small hole in a wall of granite - almost like an amphitheater at the back of it. I was told this cave was where pirates used to lay in wait for a ship to pass, then they'd sail out of the cave and go about their looting. Very cool!

Also at Cave In Rock, one of the other couples in our group took their small dog with them, and the dog discovered the corpse of a possum amongst the rocks on the riverfront and proceded to roll around in it. Once we discovered what it was rolling around in, we all ran over to see!!! (Woo-hoo! Let's all look at the dead animal!) Then spent the rest of the day calling the dog "the possum dog".

While Rubi, Elizabeth, and I were in Southern Illinois, Sara took Alexander and Catherine and spent some quality time with them - they went to a local "home show" and the kids gathered a bunch of freebies from the different vendors, then they went an played at Sara's boyfriends house for awhile (apparently building an invisible treehouse, though I'm not sure how that works), then they went for slushies at Sonic, and came home and had a nice long playbath with many bubbles ending up all over the bathroom. They got to have a fun day too!

We'd like to go back sometime to Rim Rock, take Alexander for some more climbing, and maybe spend time on different trails.

Fun!