I just got back from a six day camping trip in Illinois. Lauren and I went downstate into Shawnee National Forest. By the end of the trip we had hiked quite a few trails and stayed at two different campgrounds.

Before I begin to narrate here’s a link to the gallery of photos we took while down there if you just want to look at the pictures

We started our trip by travelling to Pine Ridge campground located near Pounds Hollow. We got there on Thursday, May 11 - also the day of our three year anniversary.
Pine Ridge was absolutely deserted. The campground has 75 campsites.. only two of the four or five sets of sites (10-20 per set) were open though. We were completely alone. Somewhere along the way we had one other person join us at the campground.. but that was the only other person we ever saw there besides the ranger person who just drove around every now and then.. and this local cop who drove around too.. I guess the law enforcement people get really bored down there.

The fee for the site was $5/day, but there’s no person to pay.. you just leave your money in a box at the front of the campground.

The weather forecast for our trip was supposed to be extremely crummy, but we went anyway. Our first day there it was pretty windy, but we experienced very very little rain and ended up setting up in pretty nice weather. Our site was very well protected from the wind and we put up all the stuff we needed to be protected from the rain. The whole time at Pine Ridge was actually really pleasant.. we stayed there until Sunday.

Here’s Lauren posing with the beach shower thing that we used one morning to take a shower. COLD AS HELL. holy shit. that was horrible. Anyway.. yeah we showered there one morning.. two mornings? I can’t remember now.. Another morning we ended up pumping water and pouring it on ourselves with half-gallon jugs. Those were the shortest, coldest showers I’ve ever taken in my life.

Anyway.. so then we stated hiking around. I don’t remember all the trails we went on, but we definitely ended up going on some that I had been on before with the old venture crew. We rappelled there a couple years ago. So yeah.. the rocks are huge.. big.. steep.. cliffs.. all over the place. It probably doesn’t sound all that exciting, but they actually are pretty neat when you’re standing by them.. They’re just these huge rock formations that shoot straight up out of the ground. Very.. not-Illinois-like.

We made a campfire just about every night.. ate quite well.. chicken.. steak.. potatoes.. rice.. corn. Man.. anything over a campfire tastes great. We had a guest every night too.. This racoon kept coming to our site.. man.. those things arent afraid of anything. He had no problem walking right up to us. Had we not shined a flashlight on him and yelled at him he probably would’ve just pulled up a chair and sat by the fire with us. Luckily we are experienced with dealing with racoons and all of our food was kept safe - unlike last time when i ended up chasing one into the woods to get by damn cooking spoon back. Anyway.. lesson is.. wash your dishes and dont leave them out.. hide your trash too unless you want to pick it up all over your site.

We didn’t camp at Garden of the Gods.. Pounds Hollow/Pine Ridge is right down the road from it and is a much bigger campground.. exact same facilities though. .nothing. hahah. ok fine so they had vault toilets.. which actually were very well-kept and smelled fine. No showers though. No running water.. just a pump. On the day before the day we left we went to Garden of the Gods. It’s a really really short trail, but you’ll spend plenty of time at it… even if you don’t have a camera.. There are tons of places to climb around on and it’s a really neat place. The trail is paved so it doesn’t seem as remote, but who cares. We looked at the campground there and it was pretty nice.. but it was significantly smaller and it was actually pretty filled up.. Glad we didn’t stay there.

I didn’t take any pictures when we were at Giant City.. We stayed there only two days and one of those days was wet and cold as hell. Nonetheless we managed to have fun there and walked a bunch of the trails they had. Camping there is $8/night for non-electric sites.. They have nice showers.. oddly enough though I know I felt cleaner after taking those half-gallon-cold-showers or the ones under the beach shower.

Overall I’d say the trip was a success.. this log entry isn’t really.. it’s kinda rambly and unorganized.. oh well.. I just wanted to get it down in writing. Glad we went!