Our campsite at Lake Le-Aqua-Na State Park, Illinois.

We had nice trees and shade.

Thomas in the A.M.

Megan in the A.M.

Repeat ("")

No Bicycling where we parked in Lena near St. Joseph Church.

Our most boring route to date.

A lot of sunshine and few trees...

We found some shade here!

This reminded us of the beginning of the movie "Cast away".

Lots of corn!

We arrived at Apple River Canyon State Park, IL.

Another very nice, shaded campsite.

Milk Weed Tussock moth. Thomas found this on our bike ride.

Some interesing rock formations in Apple River Canyon State Park.

Apple River.

A lookout point where all we saw were trees, on our hike to a rock formation.

The orange dog caterpillar with its defense mechanism displayed. It scared Megan.

A calm orange dog.

A larger orange dog. Megan almost jumped off the path and down a cliff when she saw this one.

The rock tower we hiked to.

Megan.

Thomas, very happy with his orange dog.

Good morning. Here is our tent.

Sheeep!!!

The amazing ride home.

The sole shady spot for lunch.

Here we are back in Lena, IL.

And here we are at O´Hare airport, with Thomas's Dad!!!!

Megan and Thomas's Dad.

Read the full story below:

It was one of the most boring bike rides to date. Illinois corn fields. Especially after last weekend's Mississippi River ride. So I think we learned our lesson about biking in Illinois. But the state parks were nice, and we still got a good work out in. Here's the story:

Friday we drove about an hour and half to Lake Le-Aqua-Na state park in lllinois (named after the town Lena that it close by). We had stopped at Burger King along the way in Monroe, WI, but Thomas felt a mild allergy from their food so we might not go there again.

When we arrived at the park we waited for a while in a line to register. We were surprised that there was no entrance fee for state parks in Illinois. When we asked the lady if we could leave our car in the park overnight Saturday while we biked to Apple River, she said she didn't know because she was a volunteer and we needed to ask the ranger when he was driving around the campground. Then the ranger pulled up and he said he didn't know and he needed to call his boss. He couldn't get a hold of his boss, so he recommended that we park at a church in town and he drew us a map. Or he said we could park at his house.

We were able to pick out our own campsite, so after driving the small loop three times in the dark we managed to pick out a nice wooded site. We felt like drinking but since they have a no alcohol policy at Illinois state parks, I stuck with water and Thomas had a 7 UP. Our close by neighbors weren't too loud so we slept well.

We didn't have much time to explore the park, but from the car we know there are a lot of hills and a big lake with boat rentals and swimming.

Saturday morning we packed and headed to Lena to look for this church where we should park. Unfortunately the guy gave us an incorrect road name, but eventually we found the church. There was a sign on the church parking lot that said "No Bicyling".

Then since we had planned a route from the state park instead of the town of Lena, we were lost on where to go from the church. We set off at 11:11 AM. My map only had a gray spotch for Lena, and didn't show any details for street names. We ran into some bikers at a gas station and they helped us out. They warned us that many of the roads we had planned to bike were not paved. They said that north of the border, in Wisconsin, all of the roads were paved. That's what we were used to. They helped us plan a new route, and luckily it all ended up being paved and on very quiet roads.

It was very sunny, and the cornfields did not provide us with much shade. The first tree we came to that wasn't next to someone's private house, we stopped for lunch in the cool shade.

As we approached the park, there were more trees and some steeper hills over a bridge over a river. We arrived at the park around 2 and picked out a very nice site with big trees and shade.

We were tired from the heat, but we went on a hike to a rock tower. Thomas found many orange dog caterpillars, and wanted to take one to show his dad. They have a defense mechanism if you touch them, they shoot out this bright red fork. Megan just about jumped off the path into the ravine when Thomas touched the caterpillar and it stuck that red thing out. We rushed back to the campsite so the caterpillar would stay alive. As you can see, Thomas collected the orange dog caterpillar, tussock moth caterpillars, and a "sheeep" caterpillar. We had spaghetti for dinner, and really felt like drinking alcohol. We were so tired from the heat still so we ended up going to bed at 7 PM. Unfortunately, we had some LOUD neighbors that didn't follow the quiet hour rules or, I suspect, the alcohol policy. This guy was talking so loud all through the night. Thomas didn't mind accidentally banging our pots around the next morning. They got up, and spoke loudly again in the morning. But they were entertaining to us, the girl thought she might be pregnant so they discussed that all morning while we packed. They kept calling each other "babe". and the guy used the F word constantly.

We set off at 10:20, back into the cornfields. It was very hot. We arrived back in Lena around 1 and Thomas had some ice cream and coffee. Our car was still in one piece at the church parking lot. We quickly packed and took off for Lake Le-Aqua-Na State Park to take a quick shower. It was one of the most refreshing showers we've ever had. It was so hot outside and with that thick layer of sunscreen mixed with sweat and dirt... It was great to get it off. Thomas brought one bottle of shampoo that was from the hotel in Holland, MI, and poured half of it on Megn's head before we went to shower because that was the only soap we had.

We left three hours in advance to pick up Thomas's dad to allow an hour for traffic, and only had an extra half hour because of traffic. We stopped at the Oasis near O'Hare so that we wouldn't have to pay for parking while we waited, and then headed to the international terminal. The flight from Frankfurt was on on time, and as we were waiting at the arrivals as people came out from customs, it turned out Thomas's dad had been out 10 minutes ago and we located each other via cell phone.

We drove home and picked up Thai food in Madison. We biked about 38.4 miles this weekend, with an average speed of 8.8 miles per hour. We are ready to return to biking in Wisconsin, with a new appreciation.