Day 3 of our trip found us at Ferne Clyffe State Park. It was extremely beautiful! We went on 3 separate hikes and found waterfalls, caves, and awesome scenery. Jack enjoyed the hikes, mostly because he had his fruit loops with him!
After Ferne Clyffe, we tried to find a natural bridge my dad had read about in one of his books, but we never found it. Instead we headed to a real swamp area that some fellow hikers told us about. Once we got there, you had to walk for about a mile along this trail with a river on one side and the swampy area on the other. We came upon some women stopped on the trail who were looking intently into the water on the swampy side. As we got closer, one of the girls showed us the harmless green snake she had found and was holding (Gross!!!) and then they showed us the BLACK SNAKE SWIMMING AROUND IN THE WATER!!!! AAAAHHHHH!!!! As we stood there looking at the snake in the water, all of a sudden one of the other women yanked my dad away from the edge of the trail- CAUSE THERE WAS ANOTHER HUGE BLACK SNAKE INCHES AWAY IN THE GRASS!!! Needless to say we freaked out- and continued on the trail. Once we reached the boardwalk that goes out into the swamp we couldn't believe our eyes,
you would have thought we were in Louisiana, it was so different from what you would expect to see in Illinois! A real swamp!! There were more people on the boardwalk, all with cameras and binoculars. When we got closer they pointed out the baby and mother owls that were in the trees off in the distance!! Very cool!!!
On Sunday we headed back home- it was a fantastic vacation. Full of scenery and hikes I never in a million years would have expected to see in Southern Illinois. We highly recommend you check the area out!
PS. Jack was a total toddler BRAT on the way home- when he wasn't sleeping he was tossing Fruit Loops around the car and screeching at the top of his lungs. Boy were we glad to get home!!
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