Wednesday, June 8th
‘Animals aren’t mean. People can be jerks’. These were the words of Bob. I guy I met on the Cozy Corner Campsite. We sat around a fire outside his permanently moored RV as his two kids whittled sticks. He said he allowed them to have knifes out in the countryside, but not in the city. Jeremy his son had seven. They lived 18 miles outside Chicago in a suburb. Bob worked in disaster clean up. Anything from floods and fires to murders and suicides. He’d started coming out here four years ago. Initially with a tent, then a camper van, and now, a fully plugged in 36 foot long house with wheels
He helped out Dave who owned and ran the campsite with his wife Barb. As I cycled into the campsite, initially just out of curiosity after being put off by the $25 fee for state park camping near by. Dave came out of his white, wooden home, which he’d lived in for all of his life, apart from the time he spent in the Korean War after he ‘got bored of milking cows’. The land had been in his family for many years before that.
Dave held a can of miller light in his hand and asked me questions about my trip and unlike any other campsite I’ve stayed in so far was actually interested and understanding of my circumstances and let me pitch my tent for $10 instead of the usual $20. Behind the fence in front of his house was a six month old daschhound and a white smiling dog with a fluffy tail. Dave introduced Bob and handed me a can of beer. As I was putting up my tent I received another. He drove around the campsite, of which I was the only resident so far, other than Bob, in an old golf cart. Bob lit a fire and a cart of logs was drawn up next to the spot I’d chosen to camp. Then Bob arrived with a polystyrene cooler containg four or five bottles of Miller. Then he gave me fresh towels. A little later his kids dropped off some leftover pizza.
I’m not sure what is done to deserve such hospitality, but I was very grateful for it, and the conversation. I’d spent the afternoon hiking around two state parks – Starved Rock and Mattheisen, and had become a little bit too aware of my solitude. Not that I was lonely or felt isolated or unhappy in the slightest, it’s just that walking or hiking tends to facilitate conversation, where as cycling actually prevents it, or at least makes it harder. The speed you’re travelling at provides constant visual stimulation, that, combined with the fact I’m using energy moving my legs, concentrating and planning my route, means there really isn’t much space left to feel lonely. But walking isn’t perhaps quite the same in those respects.
The state parks were a different landscape from the rest of Illinois. Both contained vast canyons you could walk above or below. Waterfalls, and outlooks of the Illinois river. Starved rock was my first stop and was the much more commercial of the two. A big carpark, gift shop, wooden stairways which connected all the trails, too many people to really by immersed in the vastness of it.
Mattheisen was like a more humbler, quieter, more interesting brother to Starved Rock. And despite being the smaller park it was much more rewarding. The trails less developed, fewer people, more space to explore and have to yourself. I must have walked three of four miles, first in the river bed, then along the bluffs, and below into the belly of the canyon which opened up on a large waterfall with a bridge above. It was dark and swampy and smelt like moss, but it was pretty too.
The parks had been my destination for the day. The riding up to them had been largely on the Illinois / Michigan canal path from the spot I’d camped in last night. I’d slept undisturbed, tucked behind a hedge in the state park and got up at sunrise. There was mist rising from the prairie or field (I’m not sure on the difference) and the sun was bright behind the single tree in front of my tent.
I used the new gas stove I’d bought in Chicago for the first time. Making a half decent cup of coffee and a half burnt pot of oatmeal. Not bad. It felt good to be a little more self sufficient again and though it meant carrying a little extra bulk I was confident it would pay off when I found myself in these more isolated situations.
The roads were quiet all the way to the city of Morris, 20 or so miles in where I stopped for an ice coffee, at McDonald’s, and some supplies from a supermarket. As I packed my shopping away outside a woman gave me $5 but said I was ‘worth $500’ and that it was illegal to have a tan this good so early in the season. I didn’t really know how to react, but gladly took her money and thanked her for the compliments.
The next 30 miles to the parks were fairly uneventful as I switched between the canal path and the road if the path got too rough. It was predictable and easy going.
The only shock was when I was on the road and saw what I thought was a large branch laying across the shoulder at the side of the road. It was only when I got within a few wheel lengths of it that the stick was no longer a stick and the snakes head came into focus. It must have been 3 foot in length. Dark coloured, but I’m not sure what type. I swerved to avoid it and looked back. I wanted a photo but I also didn’t want to get that close again. I was told that they liked sitting on the road to soak up the heat. But I didn’t believe I’d ever see one.
It put me on edge for the next couple of hours and I cycled in the middle of the road or cycle track to avoid something launching at me from the verge. I knew this wasn’t truly rational behaviour.
I made it to the parks at around 2. Then the campsite at 7 or so. It was a leisurely day though the hiking hadn’t been kind to my knees.
Before I joined Bob at his fire I sat in a white plastic chair and poked the fire that had been made for me as I drank my light American beer. Though I passionately hate empty cliches like ‘everything will be ok’, time and again on this trip I’ve found that whatever route I take, wherever I find myself, both geographically or psychologically, things happily always have a way of working themselves out for the best.
Map
