If I die in a car crash tomorrow please don't feel sorry for me. Don't worry though, we don't plan on going anywhere tomorrow as it is supposed to snow. It is really cold out! So we plan on staying inside, sitting by the fireplace, and drinking hot chocolate. Hmmm, too bad - we don't have a fireplace. Okay, so maybe we'll just drink hot chocolate. Oh, now back to my original point.
Today we drove to Utica, IL. For those of you following us on a map, we're a bit west of Joliet. We looked at every weather map there is and there is no place we can get to that isn't going to be cold and snowy tomorrow. What?! I thought the whole idea of a "mobile" home was to get to be in warm weather always. But it's been warmer back home the whole time since we left than where we've been. This itinerary is not nearly as warm as last year's.
Anyway, we got set up in a nice RV park and decided to take the dogs on a walk before it got any colder. We found a nearby park called Starved Rock State Park Not knowing anything about the park we just drove along the road and randomly choose one of the many parking lots. Needless to say, with weather like this we were the only car in the lot!
The park is famous for its numerous and incredibly high bluffs. Bluffs and off leash dogs definitely don't mix. So we were very careful to keep the dogs on leash. The trail started of going parallel to the road about 20' back in the lightly treed forest. But then it took a sudden turn away from the road into a canyon. It was beautiful. I get the feeling that a couple weeks ago it would have been totally amazing as currently on the ground are thousands of brilliantly colored leaves. I could just imagine all those brilliant colored leaves on the trees. But even with so many of the leaves on the ground it was still a beautiful place.
Unfortunately I couldn't really capture the beauty on my camera. Everything was too big and too close. We ended up in a canyon with huge rock walls on both sides. Down the middle of the canyon was a small creek. At this point it was quite obvious that we were in the bottom of a canyon so there was no danger of flying off a bluff. So we let the girls off leash. It's moments like this that make you remember that life is worth living. I haven't laughed this much in a long long time.
Wazzu turned back into a one year old puppy. She played major crazy dog. For those of you that don't know what crazy dog is, well it's something only my Wazzu can do. Other dogs may try to imitate it but no other dog I've ever seen can even come close to true crazy dog. Wazzu just runs full blast but never in a straight line for more than six feet. I truly don't even think she has any idea which direction she is going next. She was over tall rocks, on downed logs, through the creek, over the creek, zig zagging through the forest, and every couple minutes she would run toward me and instead of doing one her sharp turns as usual she would jump on me - and all in one motion she would turn and run away laughing the whole time. She thinks it is so funny to jump on me and make me scream. One time it was a dire scream as she just about sent me into the creek about eight feet below. Oh, she thought that was REALLY funny.
She must have kept this up for half an hour. It was so special. I didn't know if I'd ever get to see her like this again so to have a time together like this again was just the best thing in the whole world. And it actually came at a very good time for me. And I think Wazzu knew that.
The dogs hadn't been off leash for a few days so Sparkie was especially happy to be free. She ran and ran up ahead of us and then ran just as fast back. She went up cliffs like they were totally flat pieces of land. She came down so fast that she couldn't stop and would go zooming by us and have to circle way around before she could stop.
After a while we came to the end of the canyon and you couldn't go any further unless you were an expert rock climber with ropes and the works. At this point we felt safe letting Slugger off leash. Especially since at the end of the canyon was a waterfall and a very nice swimming hole. Slugger isn't going to run off anywhere if there is an opportunity to swim! Keep in mind it was 38 degrees out and the water was super cold. But that didn't stop Slugger from swimming. The poor little guy was shivering so badly yet he didn't want to stop swimming.
I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow of our fabulous time - but don't expect to see any of crazy dog. Any pictures of crazy dog would be VERY blurry as she was moving so fast in no predictable direction!
Debbie
10/11/06
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