Camping: Illini State Park

C and I went camping with Donovan and Dillon a few weeks ago. I've never been camping with D D before and this was the first time I did campfire cooking. It all turned out well, except that we ran out of wood and had to borrow some from our neighbors in order to make breakfast! Other than that wee snafu, we had a lot of fun.

Illini State Park is about an hour south of Chicago and about 20 mins east of Starved Rock State Park. I actually wanted to camp at Starved Rock, but they were all booked up for the weekend we wanted to go (even though I tried to make the reservation 2 months in advance!). I would recommend Illini (not to be confused with Illini Beach State Park) for some quick weekend camping if you are in Chicago. The bathrooms were good and the sites were level. We were lucky to have a clear enough night to go star gazing at a nearby field. The view over the river was also lovely in both the day and night and we woke to a beautiful foggy morning.

The very next weekend we went camping in Wisconsin, this time in a cabin. I'll have a post about that in a few days. Until then, here are some more photos from our trip to Illini State Park.