White Pines Forest State Park, Ronald Reagan, John Deere
When you have an extended weekend, take a trip and explore! This trip we went to White Pines Forest State Park. There is so much to see and check out that is nearby. The state park, itself, is super neat. It has 2 water crossings, 1 of which just to get to the campground, hiking trails, multiple cabins to stay at, a nice gift shop, and delicious restaurant with home-style cooking and a cozy fireplace. We had dinner there Friday night has it was getting chilly and we wanted to make our way up to the shop to get some firewood. Topher had a delicious burger and I had the potpie. A kind gentlemen that had saw us come in had asked the waitress to give us a coupon for breakfast that could be use the next two days.After dinner on Friday we took the drive back down to our campsite and started a fire and chilled. Kaylee was getting fussy so we wrapped it up and went to the tent for bed. Unfortunately shortly after settling down our Mr. Buddy heater stopped working. Turns out the filter for connecting the big propane tanks had gone bad. We retreated to the van to sleep that night and had the van running all night. It was not the most ideal situation and our thin sleeping pads were not cutting. Topher and I both got very minimal sleep.
On Saturday, we did a small loop of exploring starting with seeing Ronald Reagan’s boyhome in Dixon, IL. We cruised through Lowell Park, drove by the Stronghold Castle, and one of the neatest stops was the John Deere home and blacksmith shop in Grand Detour, IL, where John Deere started with his self-cleaning plow in 1837. The provide free tours of the house and property, have the actual location of where the first blacksmith shop was and a replica blacksmith shop with a blacksmith working. After John Deere, we stopped in at an old 50’s/60’s diner called Jay’s Drive-in in Oregon, IL. Lastly, we made our emergency stop at Ace Hardware to get electric heaters or a new filter just so we could sleep in the tent tonight. We found some heaters that did the job. After exploring, we headed back home and whipped up some chicken curry for dinner.
Sunday morning we packed up because we heard snow was on the way (because Illinois does not follow any type of schedule with snow in the middle of April!). We decided to come back to the state park’s restaurant for their breakfast buffet to use the coupon that was given to us. They had everything you could think of: pancakes, sausage and bacon, hash brown casserole, French toast casserole, biscuits and gravy, muffins, Danishes, fruit, yogurt, cottage cheese! It was delicious. After breakfast, we hit the rode back home, stopping at Castle Rock State Park lookout and taking an opportunity to cruise the dirt road called Wilderness road. This was definitely a state park to come back to.
