I skipped over Kentucky.
Sorry Kentucky but I'll be back. I made it into southern Illinois.
I was racing rain that was supposed to be coming in and I wanted to
get to the campground and make camp before the weather started. It
can get sort of miserable setting up in the rain. I rolled into
Ferne Clyffe State Park named because there are supposed
to be a lot of bluffs and ferns here. They thought they would class
it up by calling it Ferne.
I stop by the camp host, he
tells me pick any spot that doesn't have a reserve tag on it. I find
the spot and get all set up, including putting leveling blocks down.
It is starting to sprinkle – whew, I made it. Mr. Park Ranger
shows up and says – hey, you can't park here, it is reserved. I'm
putting the tags up now. What? I asked when did the site get
reserved? He says they came in at 4:30 this morning. It is now late
afternoon and he is just putting the tags up now? I have to move. I
only had to move across the street, but it was a hassle and it was
raining pretty good by this time. What do they say about the best
laid plans of mice and men?
I wanted to stop at Ferne
Clyffe when I was heading south this trip but it just didn't work out
time/distance wise. I'm glad that I couldn't stop because that was
way back in March and it would have been way too cold and icy to
hike. Yes, I'm a wimpy hiker. Besides that, there is a waterfall
here and as nice as frozen waterfalls are, I really like rushing
waters.
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| A little dribbler of a water fall |
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| Just cause I thought this was pretty |
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| A lovely waterfall |
The other reason to stop
here was that the park contains Illinois' largest shelter cave –
one of those caves that First Nation people used back in the day. I
followed the trail and came to a cave. It was a nice size cave, but
rather under whelming. I thought to myself: well, this is Illinois.
Illinois is not known for being a place of massive hills. Maybe this
is huge by their standards. I spent a good amount of time here, took
the obligatory photos and moved on.
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| The first cave. You could stay here and it would keep the rain off |
I left the cave, rounded the
corner and Wowzer – there was a massive shelter cave. Evidently my
first cave was just a warm up act.
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| Miko in the giant shelter cave |
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| Ok, now see Miko on the rock - you can see how huge this shelter cave was |
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