We knew we wanted to do a bike ride this weekend, and Jeff suggested somewhere along the I & M Canal corridor, which has lots of miles of trails. So I opened my drawer of maps and brochures (which I love to collect) and pulled out two or three about the Canal, and my new Cook County Forest Preserve District master map, and a Chicago Southland tourist guide and our Illinois bikepath book, and roughed out an itinerary for a day of exploration and biking.
We packed up the bikes and a picnic basket before church so we could head out for the great outdoors right at noon.
Our first destination was one of the two nature centers in a huge forest preserve section called Palos Preserve. We took 294 to 127th/Cicero street exit and followed the Cal Sag road into the preserve area. The first nature center we found was the Camp Sagawau Environmental Center. The building for this place used to be a farmhouse, but three weeks ago was the grand opening of a beautiful new interpretive center focusing mainly on the geology and anthropology of the spot, and which also had a cross-country ski rental shop and fireplace warming room. It was a beautiful building, and Douwe liked the elevator. We missed the noon time Canyon hike and Douwe is an awkward age for long hikes so we just browsed indoors for a few minutes then continued on.
Our next plan was to find a place where we could both eat our picnic lunch and park at a trailhead for the biking. Using two or three maps simultaneously, we roamed around near Archer Avenue and Route 83 looking for the best spot. We came across a little picnic grove called Columbia Woods that was near where many cars with bike racks were parked near a trail. Perfect. There was only one person at the picnic shelter and it looked like he was intending to be alone with his case of beer and carton of Marlboro's and his WXRT, but we ate there anyway, and our neighbor thought Douwe was funny with his head bobbing to the music.
We hopped on the trail and biked for several miles, but we were confused because it didn't seem to match the map. Turns out we were not on the I & M Canal trail, but a newer Centennial trail, which runs parallel but is different. There are three waterways which run parallel to each other at this spot: the Du Page River, the Sanitary and Ship Canal, and the much smaller Illinois and Michigan Canal. The two different trails were on either side of the large S & S Canal, but we ended up going west on one and back east on the other and got a nice 12 mile ride in, with Douwe snoozing in his trailer for part of the way.
Then we took a road that follows the waterways west through Lemont to Lockport, where we stopped at the historic Gaylord Building, which has a museum about the I & M Canal History. Ten years ago when I was a teacher, I took a continuing ed course on the canal, because it is of great historic importance to Chicago's history as a transportation thoroughfare before trains and trucks were invented. This spot of geography is a continental divide, so a man-made waterway had to connect the waters flowing east to Lake Michigan and west to Illinois River. This historic site in Lockport is much improved since I was here 5 years ago, with a brand new Lincoln Landings Park on its grounds along the canal.
This was Douwe's favorite spot of the day, because he had a chance to throw rocks in the water for a long time, and run around and climb on the huge rocks. 
We ate our supper in the restaurant here called Public Landing, which was a much fancier place than we expected. Douwe stayed relatively contained in his chair or under the table with some cars so he made it through that experience even though the wait for food was very long. We took I-80 back east home as the sun was setting. A great day of history and nature in the Chicago Southland!
No comments:
Post a Comment