Jay’s Note: This is part five of a running two-week adventure log for RAGBRAI. Each day I’ll be posting a journal entry and some pictures from our trip that begins in Virginia, lands us in Iowa for a bike ride, and then eventually gets us back to the East Coast. Part four is here.
Starved Rock has a 3pm checkout, which meant we finally got a slow morning: up at 8am, earl grey tea in hand, and no particular hurry for once. We took our time heating up water and getting showers in, then packed up most of the site — but kept the trailer plugged in until the last possible minute so the fridge stayed running. Everything needs to be cold!
Then breakfast at the lodge around 10am. Pancakes, bacon, sausage, potatoes, eggs… a great start to the day. We planned on skipping lunch, so a big breakfast was exactly right. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s two lodge meals in two days. No regrets.
After breakfast we hiked the rock itself. Great views up top — the Illinois River rolling by below, the dam and bridge off in the distance. People have been drawn to this spot for a very long time: the French fortified the top of it in the winter of 1682–83 (they called it Le Rocher, and the fort was Fort St. Louis), and the park gets its name from a 1769 siege in which a band of Illiniwek, cornered on top after the murder of Pontiac, starved rather than surrender.
I mentioned yesterday that the CCC built the lodge. Turns out they built most of what we touched today, too. Three companies worked this park in the 1930s, laying down more than 25 miles of trails, the shelters, and the stone stairways we climbed without a second thought. Ninety-year-old Depression-era stonework, still carrying every tourist in the park. They built things to last.
Back down the hill, the Visitor’s Center. Wonderful models and recreations of the fort and the rock — absolutely beautiful — with great volunteer workers happy to talk about any of it. Starved Rock really is the perfect place.
The kids earned ice cream for all that hiking: chocolate in waffle cones from the Starved Rock shop. Really fantastic ice cream, and a fair trade for the miles.
Rudy got dropped off at about 12:30pm. We got his stuff packed in — there’s always room for one more bag somewhere — said goodbye to the Rock, and pointed the car toward our traditional night-before spot: Kellogg RV Park.
The drive was an easy one. Nothing to report, except a Walmart stop along the way — our son brought shoes that were too small, so he got new ones. There’s always something.
We set up camp at Kellogg in the usual spot, right off I-80 with the corn just across the way. We’ve stayed here every RAGBRAI we’ve done, so at this point it’s a full tradition: decent food, clean campground, and you can be on the highway in about a minute flat. Not a fancy spot. Doesn’t need to be.
We leave early tomorrow. More soon.