Bragg Family South goes North, part 1
Things have finally quieted down enough since our return from our annual summer pilgrimage to northern Wisconsin that I finally decided to sit down and write a blog post... Our first day took us to southern Illinois for a little recreating...
Those of you familiar with the state of Illinois probably know it best for two things: the big city of Chicago and endless if rather uninspiring vistas of corn and soybean fields only periodically punctuated by some of the now extensive wind farms...Our favorite part of the state is actually the southern tip, which has different topography and vegetation than the rest. Our first real stop of this trip was Giant City State Park (http://dnr.state.il.us/lands/landmgt/parks/r5/gc.htm) not too far out of the college town of Carbondale:
Giant City is known for its rock formations, including bluffs and rock shelters (pictured above) and large boulders and rocky passageways (pictured below):
Giant City also has an extensive human history, from prehistoric occupations to much more modern historic traces, including many rock faces that people have carved their names into:
Today, if you were to scratch your name into the rocks, they'd probably arrest you for vandalism, but if you did it sufficiently long ago (we saw names with dates that went back to the 1840s at least), it is history worth preserving... Giant City was very impressive, and the kids had fun exploring the trails, caves, and crevices:
We only had enough time to walk one short loop trail, but saw enough to want to come back:
We also visited a couple of the wineries in this area--southern Illinois, like many other parts of the country, is promoting itself as a viticulture area...the wines we had were quite good! We enjoyed a nice Indian restaurant in Carbondale before continuing a couple hours further north to our hotel. The next day, since we had some time to kill before our evening plans, we stopped in Springfield, Illinois, and paid a visit to Abraham Lincoln's tomb:
I'm sure if Lincoln had anything to say about it, his tomb would have been far more humble...We then continued north to Peoria, Illinois, which was our destination for Day 2. Since we were still ahead of schedule, we decided to visit one of Peoria's premiere tourist spots--the Caterpillar visitor center. Below, Hope and the kids pose in front of a life size replica of Caterpillar's biggest truck:
Although only a plastic model, it is fully life-size, and you really can't picture the size of this beast unless you're standing next to it! The tires alone are 14 feet tall! They also had a number of other actual pieces of equipment that they manufacture that you can climb into, so don't be alarmed to see Beth at the controls of this loader:
Or Stephen "running" this machine:
The kids had a blast at Caterpillar, but that wasn't our primary motivation for visiting Peoria...It was to spend some time with my brother John and his partner, Jim. Below, Bragg Family South poses with John:
So why Peoria? Because my relatively newly-minted brother Dr. John Bragg (he has a PhD in history) taught at Bradley University for a year or so prior to getting his tenure-track position at Jersey City University. Below is a picture of the building that held his office:
In addition to visiting his former campus and some friends of theirs (below, Beth reads to the young son of these friends):
we joined John, Jim, and friends for a Peoria Chiefs minor league baseball game. The game was entertaining (the home team won), and we got to enjoy one of the best fireworks displays we have ever seen afterwards! We left the next morning for Wisconsin, stopping first at one of our favorite cheese shops in Monroe, Wisconsin, before pushing on to my parents house in northern Wisconsin. Cool, damp weather greeted us that first evening (their high temp for the day was about 55 degrees F), but the next day dawned clear if cool... I decided to go for a walk, and Stephen volunteered to go along. So, what drew lil' Stephen into the bushes below?
Why, freshly ripened wild blueberries, of course!
We weren't the only ones kicking around the bush this clear morning...Below is a picture of a porcupine (middle of the picture) that was ambling around:
Porcupines aren't rare, but one doesn't usually encounter them in the woods...Usually, I've seen them as road-kill along the highway! Below are some pictures of the pines on my parents' property:
This beautiful stand of second-growth timber is probably 90+% of the reason I went into forestry as a profession! We have worked long and hard protecting these pines from some of the things that threaten them, including damage from the previously mentioned porcupine, who eat the fresh live bark of trees, sometimes girdling and killing them, as shown in the picture below:
We also have to protect the pines from larger beasts, including those that dig them up...like the fella shown below:
This is a picture of my dad's latest property improvement efforts, which involves digging up big rocks to use as a retaining wall near the house, plus the sandy soil which he is adding to the low spots on his existing trail network. My dad loves to showcase eclectic pieces of folk art he runs across, such as the really cool "spider" he has displayed near his mailbox:
Look real close to see if you can figure out what it is made of... Even though it rarely got above 75 degrees while we were in northern Wisconsin, it didn't keep the kids from enjoying a couple visits to a local lake (Buck Lake) for a swim...Below, they are joined by their cousin Emma:
I figured the best point to close the first part of the blog on this trip is a picture of Hope sitting next to one of her Christmas gifts from this last year:
Believe it or not, it is being properly used! My dad got Hope a pine log that had been debarked, and some holes drilled into it for ventilation. One simply then lit the fire starter part of it, and the holes vented the heat and flames up the middle of it, and it burned quite nicely, for hours! It was much better at giving off light than heat, which was less than ideal on a cool evening, but we enjoyed it nevertheless...
Those of you familiar with the state of Illinois probably know it best for two things: the big city of Chicago and endless if rather uninspiring vistas of corn and soybean fields only periodically punctuated by some of the now extensive wind farms...Our favorite part of the state is actually the southern tip, which has different topography and vegetation than the rest. Our first real stop of this trip was Giant City State Park (http://dnr.state.il.us/lands/landmgt/parks/r5/gc.htm) not too far out of the college town of Carbondale:
Giant City is known for its rock formations, including bluffs and rock shelters (pictured above) and large boulders and rocky passageways (pictured below):
Giant City also has an extensive human history, from prehistoric occupations to much more modern historic traces, including many rock faces that people have carved their names into:
Today, if you were to scratch your name into the rocks, they'd probably arrest you for vandalism, but if you did it sufficiently long ago (we saw names with dates that went back to the 1840s at least), it is history worth preserving... Giant City was very impressive, and the kids had fun exploring the trails, caves, and crevices:
We only had enough time to walk one short loop trail, but saw enough to want to come back:
We also visited a couple of the wineries in this area--southern Illinois, like many other parts of the country, is promoting itself as a viticulture area...the wines we had were quite good! We enjoyed a nice Indian restaurant in Carbondale before continuing a couple hours further north to our hotel. The next day, since we had some time to kill before our evening plans, we stopped in Springfield, Illinois, and paid a visit to Abraham Lincoln's tomb:
I'm sure if Lincoln had anything to say about it, his tomb would have been far more humble...We then continued north to Peoria, Illinois, which was our destination for Day 2. Since we were still ahead of schedule, we decided to visit one of Peoria's premiere tourist spots--the Caterpillar visitor center. Below, Hope and the kids pose in front of a life size replica of Caterpillar's biggest truck:
Although only a plastic model, it is fully life-size, and you really can't picture the size of this beast unless you're standing next to it! The tires alone are 14 feet tall! They also had a number of other actual pieces of equipment that they manufacture that you can climb into, so don't be alarmed to see Beth at the controls of this loader:
Or Stephen "running" this machine:
The kids had a blast at Caterpillar, but that wasn't our primary motivation for visiting Peoria...It was to spend some time with my brother John and his partner, Jim. Below, Bragg Family South poses with John:
So why Peoria? Because my relatively newly-minted brother Dr. John Bragg (he has a PhD in history) taught at Bradley University for a year or so prior to getting his tenure-track position at Jersey City University. Below is a picture of the building that held his office:
In addition to visiting his former campus and some friends of theirs (below, Beth reads to the young son of these friends):
we joined John, Jim, and friends for a Peoria Chiefs minor league baseball game. The game was entertaining (the home team won), and we got to enjoy one of the best fireworks displays we have ever seen afterwards! We left the next morning for Wisconsin, stopping first at one of our favorite cheese shops in Monroe, Wisconsin, before pushing on to my parents house in northern Wisconsin. Cool, damp weather greeted us that first evening (their high temp for the day was about 55 degrees F), but the next day dawned clear if cool... I decided to go for a walk, and Stephen volunteered to go along. So, what drew lil' Stephen into the bushes below?
Why, freshly ripened wild blueberries, of course!
We weren't the only ones kicking around the bush this clear morning...Below is a picture of a porcupine (middle of the picture) that was ambling around:
Porcupines aren't rare, but one doesn't usually encounter them in the woods...Usually, I've seen them as road-kill along the highway! Below are some pictures of the pines on my parents' property:
This beautiful stand of second-growth timber is probably 90+% of the reason I went into forestry as a profession! We have worked long and hard protecting these pines from some of the things that threaten them, including damage from the previously mentioned porcupine, who eat the fresh live bark of trees, sometimes girdling and killing them, as shown in the picture below:
We also have to protect the pines from larger beasts, including those that dig them up...like the fella shown below:
This is a picture of my dad's latest property improvement efforts, which involves digging up big rocks to use as a retaining wall near the house, plus the sandy soil which he is adding to the low spots on his existing trail network. My dad loves to showcase eclectic pieces of folk art he runs across, such as the really cool "spider" he has displayed near his mailbox:
Look real close to see if you can figure out what it is made of... Even though it rarely got above 75 degrees while we were in northern Wisconsin, it didn't keep the kids from enjoying a couple visits to a local lake (Buck Lake) for a swim...Below, they are joined by their cousin Emma:
I figured the best point to close the first part of the blog on this trip is a picture of Hope sitting next to one of her Christmas gifts from this last year:
Believe it or not, it is being properly used! My dad got Hope a pine log that had been debarked, and some holes drilled into it for ventilation. One simply then lit the fire starter part of it, and the holes vented the heat and flames up the middle of it, and it burned quite nicely, for hours! It was much better at giving off light than heat, which was less than ideal on a cool evening, but we enjoyed it nevertheless...
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