Movin’ On; the Compensations of our Solitary Life

Our times with friends ended as we drove south along the Iowa shore of the Mississippi River on the first of October. The first part of our journey was on relatively back roads through picturesque river towns.

Just under five hours later we were at Johnson-Sauk Trail State Recreation Area in Illinois, 150 miles west and a bit south of Chicago.

We have plenty of room here and the view from my tent is lovely. Unfortunately, there are biting gnats so tiny they can get through the mesh and worse, the temperatures have been in the mid 80’s, so Matey and I only spent one morning enjoying this view.

We have done some morning and evening walks. This inviting trail…

leads to Johnson Lake.

There’s a picnic area there and a path back to another part of the campground.

We came across these deer.

There’s a pine planting in that area; kind of pretty but also sterile. There are tent and RV camping spots through it and that’s a good use.

There are also Osage orange trees here.

I love these gnarly trees that look like they’re dropping tennis balls all over the ground.

The park is the home of the Ryan Round Barn. It was built in the early 1900’s but unfortunately is only available for tours by appointment.

Yesterday afternoon I took a walk by myself around the lake. It was too hot for Matey and Bud’s back was hurting. It was Bud’s birthday and I teased him that the nicest thing I could do for him was to leave him alone for the day. Anyway, it’s a bit under three miles around the lake. This is looking back at the picnic area where Matey and I walked the first evening.

A lot of the walk was along the one-way road that circles the lake. Some of the biggest walnut trees I’ve seen towered over the road. Nuts were dropping with a frequency that made me wonder if I might get hit in the head with one.

I passed some nice picnic areas…

and was able to walk along the lake for a bit.

I cut through on the Ojibwa Trail. It’s marked moderate,

but the whole trail was like this. It’s hard to judge a trail by its posted difficulty, I’ve been on trails marked moderate that were pretty challenging, but this was not.

I then took the Piankashaw Trail…

that led up to and along the dam that makes the lake.

There are nice views at this end of the lake…

as well as a kayak launch and fishing dock.

This is off season camping and through the week parks are pretty empty. You can just see our trailer in the distance, the only campers at our end of this big loop. Although it’s hard to leave friends we both love the new sights and the solitude we find on the road.