{"id":223,"date":"2011-06-25T21:37:14","date_gmt":"2011-06-26T02:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roadtrippingforkids.com\/blog\/?p=223"},"modified":"2011-06-25T22:48:28","modified_gmt":"2011-06-26T03:48:28","slug":"starved-rock-state-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.roadtrippingforkids.com\/blog\/starved-rock-state-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Starved Rock State Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before we got to the park, hunger pains set in and we were looking for an eatery.\u00a0 The Root Beer Stand caught our eye.\u00a0 The Root Beer Stand is in Oglesby, Illinois which is not far from the park so we stopped there for some lunch on the way in.\u00a0 This place was the bomb diggity!\u00a0 The root beer is homemade ( we talked to the owner to get the scoop ) and has been made by hand for 50+ years.\u00a0 This place should be on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives ( hear that, Guy )!\u00a0 The food and drink was splendid!\u00a0 Ben says the root beer was the best in the world and he did not spill a drop – this coming from my brother who has spilled a drink in every single state he has ever visited – Scout’s honor!\u00a0 He spills every drink at every meal and is always surprised!\u00a0 We, on the other hand, always see it coming and try to appear surprised.<\/p>\n

\"Root
Root Beer Stand menu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Homemade
Homemade Root Beer <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We arrived at Starved Rock State Park and it was wet and muggy.\u00a0 We decided not to camp, as the rain was coming down all over the area and had been for several days.\u00a0 The humidity was high and water was everywhere already.<\/p>\n

The Starved Rock State Park is located on the Illinois river and it is very pretty, with some amazing hiking trails (read more about that below). Our reserved campsite was covered in poison ivy and there were tornado warnings in the area, so we opted to wuss out and stay in a hotel for the night.<\/p>\n

The hiking trails were awesome! There were boardwalks everywhere and some really cool waterfalls.\u00a0 Mom carried Wil in the backpack carrier until we got to the bottom of Wildcat Canyon, where all of us got into the water.\u00a0 He loves water, but since he can’t swim, we really had to watch him.\u00a0 Dad had to go into the water with his shoes on because Wil took off & fell into a hole; all we could see were his blond curls floating on top of the water until Dad grabbed his shirt and yanked him out of the water!\u00a0 Best of all, he was smiling and had his big fat grin on when he come up – what a monkey!\u00a0 We hiked through 5 different canyons and viewed waterfalls from so many different levels.\u00a0 We crossed paths with many deer & we even saw a mama deer with twin fawns.\u00a0 That was so cool!<\/p>\n

\"Starved
Starved Rock View<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The bad news on Starved Rock State Park is that the camping sites are across a road and not connected to the Visitor Center and hiking trails.\u00a0 You essentially have to drive to the hiking trails as you cannot get there from the campground.\u00a0 That was a bummer as well.<\/p>\n

For supper, we drove our car across the parking lot, braving the hurricane-force winds & rain, to eat at…wait for it…the Cracker Barrel.\u00a0 Yes, a chain.\u00a0 It was raining & CB was close, please don’t pass judgment; you know you all love the games anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before we got to the park, hunger pains set in and we were looking for an eatery.\u00a0 The Root Beer Stand caught our eye.\u00a0 The Root Beer Stand is in Oglesby, Illinois which is not far from the park so we stopped there for some lunch on the way in.\u00a0 This place was the bomb … Continue reading Starved Rock State Park<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.roadtrippingforkids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.roadtrippingforkids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.roadtrippingforkids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.roadtrippingforkids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.roadtrippingforkids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"http:\/\/www.roadtrippingforkids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":225,"href":"http:\/\/www.roadtrippingforkids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions\/225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.roadtrippingforkids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.roadtrippingforkids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.roadtrippingforkids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}