Oh, the beginning of school, such a glorious time! It feels like summer just started, and it is already gone. In any case, at some point in July, I started worrying we would get the end of summer and wish we’d done more, so I figured I’d plan another weekend trip. I wanted to make it longer, but Louie couldn’t get away from work enough, so I found a cute airbnb about 1 1/2 hours away that would have opportunities for relaxing, swimming, hiking, eating, and just not being at home.
We found a lovely place in Du Quoin, Illinois, a town neither of us had heard of before. It was a cottage with a full kitchen, screened porch, and lake/pond access, and it had terrific reviews. We booked three nights for the weekend before my teaching semester started up again.
That was last week. Things went well, but life is getting busier and busier. I have a whole new calendar and billing system, and it’ll take people a little time to fully get used to it, but I think it’ll make my life easier and better. We had two party invites on Saturday, which was a lot of fun but exhausting…both mostly outdoor events and mostly/all vaccinated folks. But I digress!
We packed up the car and headed to Du Quoin on late Friday afternoon after Louie finished work. We found the place easily enough and got unloaded. There were wild turkeys and lots of big flies saying hello. We met up with our hosts and learned about the pond and some other important things (they require that you meet with them if you want to use the water). We had decided to cook dinner the first night, so we did that, and just relaxed. There wasn’t any wifi in the cottage, but there was phone service. It wasn’t a hardship, and the place was just really comfortable. The hosts even left us homemade granola, and fresh local eggs, milk, and butter.
The next morning we slept in a bit and then we actually had a thing to go to in Bonne Terre, a friend’s sister’s memorial service. We had decided to go, but decided to keep our trip to Du Quoin anyway, so we drove about 2 hours to Bonne Terre. It was a lovely drive, through rural farmland and corn and over the Mississippi.
We attended the service and visited for awhile and then headed back. I will say this: very few folks there wore masks, and we knew it was probably one of the riskiest activities we’d done in awhile.
We drove back and on the way stopped at Scratch Brewery in Ava, Illinois. I didn’t care for Ava, because there were two houses with signs out front advertising “Trump 2024: F**k your Feelings” except they wrote it out, and I found that incredibly offensive and distasteful. Both houses were along main routes, and while I imagine that many of the residents of Ava also dislike those people, I am happy to not return to the town. I would go to the brewery again though, but avoid anything else.
We had a sampler of beer and some bread with various spreads. Their beer is very unique and unusual, with things like Strawberry Sumac and Dry-hopped Sassafras. We enjoyed sitting outside and relaxing. It was another 20 minute drive to St Nicholas Brewing Company in Du Quoin which our hosts highly recommended. We had dinner there, and enjoyed their beers as well, though we realized we were actually still pretty full from the bread! St Nicholas was more of a standard brewery with a full menu, but we had a nice time. It was indoor seating, though we got a nicely distanced table. We figured at that point we were at the mercy of our vaccines and immune response.
I enjoyed the picture of Krampus on a nearby wall. German children are so lucky!
The next morning we headed to the Little Grand Canyon to hike. It is a hike in the 60 Hikes Book I’ve always wanted to check out, but it’s about 2 hours from home. It was only 40 minutes from Du Quoin so that seemed like a good plan. We loaded up and headed out and enjoyed the first part of the hike. There’s a point where the trail heads down some rocks, with steps chiseled into the rocks, into the canyon, and when we got there we realized it was basically just a creek. We started to try it, and then Louie slipped and fell and it was like a slip and slide! We decided to head back up. The hike was a loop, however, so we figured we’d hike the other side instead, and at least see a scenic look out and see how the other end looked. All in all, we hiked both sides up until you go down into the canyon but decided though the other side looked slightly less wet and dangerous, it wasn’t for us on this day.
After the hike, we went home and got ready to hit the pond! The pond/lake/whatever was a former strip mine that is now filled with water. One thing our hosts emphasized was that it was deep right away, and very deep: 25 to 100 feet! A little terrifying, but I just tried not to think about it. First we took the rowboat out to explore: there is a creeky old rowboat you can use. It was fun to ride while Louie worked hard (hah!) and we went some ways, to the end of the pond at the long end (it’s a wavy T shape) and then back. We were hot and sweaty then, so we hopped in the water for a bit. There is a ladder in and out, and plenty of floats to use so you don’t have to swim/tread water more than you want. The water was warm at the top but cooler down below.
After we got out of the water we chatted with our hosts a bit: they told stories of giant catfish and scuba diving! Then we went up to cook our dinner again. We figured we’d taken enough COVID risks the day before. We also managed to download a couple episodes of TV to watch (you can hook your phone up to a TV if you have something to watch) and enjoyed relaxing and watching tv before bed.
We got up early the next morning and headed home: we were both working after lunch and so we needed to get back. It was a lovely weekend getaway!
One of my pandemic thoughts was that I wanted to do more things nearby when we can rather than just waiting until summer to do longer trips. We’d like to still do a longer trip next summer if possible, but it’s been really nice exploring nearby this summer: Arkansas, Hawn State Park, Du Quoin. Maybe we’ll be able to do a few more short weekend trips over the upcoming school year.