The "Standard Run" And A Good Co-Pilote

Had lunch yesterday with my pal Larry at Starved Rock State Park.  SRSP is about three hours from the Loop.   We met in Ottawa and took IL 71 to the park.  This is about the best run for twisties that I've found in northern Illinois (and I've looked plenty).  I hear there are some great roads in southern Illinois, but I'm usually "passing through" and trying to make time when I get down there.  Between Ottawa and SRSP, IL 71 closely follows the south bank of the Illinois River.  Starved Rock itself is a promontory, so there's a nice mix of curves near it.  The best part of the run is short (2+ miles) and, if you make multiple passes, you'll attract unwanted attention.  But it's very challenging.  And it's the best we've got hereabouts.

 The tourism is fine.  Ottawa was the site of the first of the eight Lincoln-Douglas debates.  There's a statue of Da Boyss in the town square, and some other Lincoln and "river town" history to see.  At the park, the view of the river makes it worth the short hike to the top of Starved Rock.  (The local legend is that one band of Indians besieged another on the rock until the latter jumped to their deaths in the river.)  The rock itself has been a navigation landmark since Europeans kept trip logs.  "Marquette and Jolliet slept here."  You can cross the river west of the park to visit the lock & dam.  If you're lucky, a barge tow may go through.  There's high art to being a river pilot.  Not something you learn from a book, or in a year of apprenticeship.

Larry and I had a fine al fresco lunch at the park's Lodge.  We keep discovering weird coincidences in our lives and tastes.  Today we learned that, although we both love music, we never have audio on in the car.  We prefer to listen to engine and gear noises.  In my case, it may be a "walk and chew gum" thing too: it's hard to rev-match a downshift with rock or blues ("my" music) blaring in my ears.  Maybe I should have figured this out when we visited the Dragon together in March.  As the host driver, I brought along half a dozen CD's, in plain sight.  Larry never looked through them, or asked to.

We also favor a the same (chain) brand of gasoline.  And we usually follow the "no comfort stops between gas stops" rule.  And eat when it fits the rhythm of the trip, not "when it's time" (and we favor the same kinds of restaurants).  We both run hard when there's room, but ease up in traffic.  A like-minded co-driver is about the best thing you can have on a road trip.  Larry refuses to pass on the right, but nobody's perfect.  We talk of making another trip to the Dragon, this time in two cars, so he can test his new demon suspension to the fullest, and not worry about being a "guest driver."  I would not be surprised if we ran into each other at gas stations, even if we were not trying to stay together on an Interstate run.  We are beginning to remind me of those two geezers in the theater box on The Muppet Show.

 The Illinois River,  looking upstream from Starved Rock.

A barge "tow" in the main channel, heading upstream into the lock.

A tow in the lock, headed downstream.  People are in the shot for scale.  Tows tend to look like toys viewed from afar.  They are huge. 

The Lodge seen from Starved Rock itself.  Lunch under one of those umbrellas nicely fills the middle of an easy day-trip from Chicagoland.