
In Illinois, From Lake Rend (green dot) to Utica (B) to Tomson (C). Then to Dodgeville (checkered dot), WISCONSIN!
We decided to spend a month in WISCONSIN! How did that happen? When Bill was trying to plan our route back to Virginia, he originally planned to go via Michigan and a northern route. But then something drew his eye to Wisconsin. And we learned a lesson recently: No more “flying” through a state – we want to savor our journeys as we go….
So we decided to see a few new places as we headed north to Wisconsin from Lake Rend near Mount Vernon, Illinois. Bill does an amazing job of finding GREAT places to explore on our routes. Our first stop was in Utica, Illinois, home of Starved Rock State Park.
Our first leg there, to Utica was our longest so far, 284 miles, nearly 5 hours of driving – and not what we prefer, but thankfully, the trip went smooth as silk! We stayed in Hickory Hollow Campground, which had it all! It is a Passport America park ($20 cash and excludes weekends) for full hook up, 50 amp and wifi. It was conveniently located with easy access in and out and very well maintained. Our site, G3, was relatively flat. We did have an issue with the 50 amp circuit breaker. It blew a few times – so they sent out their on-site electrician who fixed it in a flash! He said they were going to close soon for a short time to re-do their electric hook ups.
We arrived around 3:00 pm. While Bill hooked up, I drove about 15 minutes to Starved Rock State Park to get a hiking map – the on-line access to figure out which trail to hike was complicated! Plus, it was great to get oriented as we are never sure how things will be until we get there….
After I returned with the map, I was excited as it looked like there was an easy hike to see a small canyon….Only for Bill to THEN say we were fortunate as we could have had a disaster like Wheeling It when their tow car became detached on one “arm” and suffered car and motorhome damage! Their clamp actually broke, but ours just didn’t properly attach – Bill learned a GREAT lesson that day! He hadn’t realized with over 10,000 tow miles there is a certain way to insert the pin.
- This is how our tow bar is supposed to look. Note the red arrow.
- Bill had already detached and put everything up, but here is his recreation of how the pin looked upon arrival. Disaster miraculously averted!
After we thanked God for our safe journey, we were energized and decided to take on an “easy” hike – and of course, you have to know it wasn’t easy! We didn’t take our poles – I couldn’t decide while I was crawling up the hillside on all fours if the poles would have helped or not! And sadly, we didn’t get a picture of the trail hill we conquered…we were too busy hanging on for dear life and wondering why they said this was an easy hike. Turned out, there was a MUCH easier way to tackle it. Here are a few pictures from our first day hiking adventure:

This is my “after” picture. We thought we were going to take an easy hike to Aurora Canyon. We’re newbies when it comes to canyon hiking….

This was where we “climbed” up to on all fours – but to the bottom of the Aurora Canyon. And now we have a bird’s eye view. So how does that work?

Finger pointing to where we were at the bottom of the canyon. It wasn’t as glamorous as we thought a canyon would be, but the challenging hike made it worth it.

We didn’t know we’d see another canyon on this hike! Not much different from Aurora Canyon.
Let’s get oriented before we show you more pictures. This main overview of the hikes with individual hikes are on this website (go there and you will see why it was confusing to figure out the trails.) First is a snapshot of an overview of the park, with the hikes we completed outlined in yellow highlight. French Canyon, Lover’s Leap and Eagle Cliff were just too busy (and had lots of stairs) for us to try.

Overview of 16 hikes and the point of interest. We completed hikes 5-16.

Day one, we hiked from Aurora Canyon to St. Louis Canyon. We didn’t see Kickapoo, but apparently it was there. This was just over 3 1/2 miles and took us just over an hour to complete in moving time!

Day 2 was very aggressive, over 8 miles! It was Thursday, so we didn’t really see too many people on the trails. We parked near Lasalle Canyon (see the P in brown?). We went to Owl Canyon Overlook, then Hidden Canyon, over to Hennepin Canyon, Ottawa Canyon and Kaskaskia Canyon and back. We got the car and drove over to parking near Illinois Canyon as you had to walk on a busy road to get there!

Sad we didn’t see the waterfalls, more like water trickles this time of the year. But the hike through the canyons was amazing anyway!

Bill snapped a pic of me snapping a picture of the canyon. Who knew there would be so many trees in a canyon, too?

Day 3, we basically hiked to the LaSalle Canyon (it was like spring break at the beach), then to Tonty Canyon – not as many people hiked to it, but due to a bridge shut down, we had to go back through LaSalle to go back to the main trail. We hiked along the Riverview trail to the Beehive Overlook. We had hoped to see more, but the crowds just zapped us!

LaSalle Canyon, was like Spring Break! The teens loved it! We were glad we had our poles as it was a bit slippery and they helped us….but we sure felt old next to all the youth hopping around without a care!

We were mainly on the River Trail after LaSalle Canyon. It was wide enough we could share the trail, but it did get a bit crowded at times.

The River Trail – was actually beautiful. We didn’t really need the poles as some of it was concrete, but we never think to fold them up and put them in my backpack!
Our next leg of our journey out of Illinois was much easier and about as perfect of a route as it can get. BUT since we were heading to VERY unknown territory, we only traveled just under 100 miles. It only took over two hours drive time. We selected Thomson’s Causeway, a US Army Corps of Engineers due to it’s proximity to our route into Wisconsin. We arrived the first day it opened for the season, due to flooding! It was rather pleasant park, small and had electric only (we had a 50 amp site). They had water spigots around the campground, but we were about 5 feet to far away to top off our tank! We stayed there June 10 – 15, 2017 and at $10 a night, it was a real bargain!

There were a few sites that had a view of the river, but of course, they were booked well ahead of time.

Our route around the campground. While much of it was in the shade, there were a few stretches in the sun! It was 91 this day!

Bill’s first time to watch a barge go through a lock and dam! It was fascinating and I was able to “interview” several crew members while they were waiting for the water to fill the lock. They basically live on the barge for 30 days then are off 30 days. It’s a rough life but someone has to do it!
Located at 2231 Grant Street, Clinton, IA, Phone: 563-242-0343
Click here to see more photos of the Lock and Dam and the Museum.
Lumber built Clinton, not just the buildings and barns, but it fathered the industry that brought the railroad, the immigrants, and the entrepreneurs. Listen to the legends and stories that made the lumberjack a national hero, then experience what life was really like in a lumber camp. Hear the buzz from the saw mill as logs are cut into the lumber and envision the workings of the Struve Mill where hundreds of pieces of wood became beautiful trims, doors and flooring. Catch a glimpse of a worker’s life or entertain with the millionaire’s family as you visit “Clinton, the Lumber Capital of the World” and other exhibits at the Sawmill Museum.
One such millionaire we learned about in the museum was George M. Curtis. We decided we had to tour his mansion (see our pictures here) the next day.
Located at 420 5th Avenue South | Clinton, IA | 563-242-8556
Constructed in 1883, the Mansion was the home of lumber baron, George M. Curtis. It served as a showcase for his business with each room featuring a different wood and decorated with the flower of the tree from which the wood was obtained. Feel the essence to what it was like to enjoy afternoon tea on the veranda of a Victorian mansion – home of millionaire lumber barons.
After we toured the home, we still have time to do something else interesting. A friend and her husband just did some traveling in their new Class C. They stopped in LeClaire, Iowa to visit the Antique Archaeology store, you know, the Pickers? Since we are fans of the show, we decided we’d make the additional 20 mile trip down there. This map shows us in Thomson, Illinois (green dot), trip around the lock and dam area of the Mississippi, to Clinton, Iowa (B dot) then down to LeClaire, Iowa. The round trip was about 60 miles – more than we normally like to do, but we’re so close!

Green dot is where our campground is, in Thomson, Illinois, see the lock and dam area of the Mississippi, then cross over the river into Clinton, Iowa, then followed the river down to LeClaire, Iowa, the checkered dot.

This is where you see Dani taking care of business! The man behind me is part of the filming crew and she’s inside. We could hear her distinct voice!

Bill, always the car man! Ii asked him what his favorite genre of cars is….geez, he just rattled off a lot – then said he likes them all except foreign cars (although we’ve owned a few).
So why did we decide to spend five days in this remote location? And then we seemed to travel to do anything fun? Well, we really needed the time to also figure out what we were going to do in Wisconsin. We hadn’t had much time to do that research. Sometimes you just have to get away to get away! But we actually really liked this location since it helped us discover Iowa! We’ll add Iowa as a state to spend more time in after the positive experiences we had.
And finally, we headed to Wisconsin! So much to do and see and so little time!!! For our first leg there, since it was going to be all new territory, we kept it short. We only drove 90 miles and took under two hours drive time to get to our first destination. We were limited on where to stay as we learned many RV campgrounds don’t have full hook ups – we are spoiled since we have a full sized refrigerator – we need 50 amps, and I love to wash a load of clothes every day. Hiking like we do means we could “dirty” two sets of clothes a day. We had wanted to get closer to Madison, but as it turned out, Dodgeville was the perfect location and we had a fabulous introduction to Wisconsin. So stay tuned…..
Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust Him, and He will help you!” Psalms 37:5
Great post. We traversed the same areas you did. Wasn’t it awesome. We were never aware of how many wonderful areas there were in that state. Thanks for taking us along with you and re-opening the memory bank.
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Thank so for stopping by! We continue to be amazed at how gorgeous and wonderful but yet different each state is! It makes us want to keep on traveling!
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Isn’t it great! We so enjoy the differences we see in not only the natural but the people. Be safe.
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Don’t you love finding things like canyons to hike in the most unexpected places? And to visit Antique Archeology and actually hear Dani on the phone! Your trip is off to a great start!
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Yes it was a great start! Since I saw their one van up close, I easily recognized it in Wisconsin when we first arrived! Then we saw that show a month later talking about the Wisconsin pick! And they were at The House on the Rock-where we kept hearing his voice saying he was drunk on junk! The we were drunk on Falls! Things I hope to blog about!!!
Canyons are amazing wonders!
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I’ll keep an eye out for the Wisconsin pick show!
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You’ve found some great hikes. Very nice canyons. Too bad it hasn’t rained so the falls had water. Keep up the great work hitting the trails!!
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Thank you….but after reading your hike to the top of the Maiden Peak (https://ohtheplacestheygo.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/hiking-to-the-top-of-maiden-peak/) I feel like we are in the school of kindergarten hikers! Wow, you two are amazing…but we’ll take what we can get….
So we just went back to Starved Rock SP. They had lots of rain, but we just didn’t have the time to go back to one of the falls to see….decided to hike the other scenic places we had missed. We did have some great views…..
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I love your posts! I am just beginning to explore but I will be extending my travels soon. Thank you for sharing. It gives me so many ideas.
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Thank you Mary! Let us know if you need any more ideas on a location. It’s such a blessing to be able to travel and explore new areas.
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