the story of a weekend get away.
Friday as I left work driving down Lake Shore Drive in Chicago I realized
something…I needed to get away and just be by myself for awhile. Sometimes life
throws things our way and gives us challenges that we need to overcome and this
weekend I was determined to overcome it.
So in the five minutes that it took me to drive down Lake Shore Drive I
decided that I was going to go camping, but I had no tent and no real
destination. I did, however know I wanted to go towards the Mississippi
River. So with that in mind I made a quick stop at Target…here I
picked up my basic camping supplies – tent, small cooler, some forks for
cooking over the fire and one very significant item….
Just a few months ago, facing some personal life changes I
ran across a program on television about life’s journey and how to be happy
along that journey, with that program there was a book that was advertised. I really
wanted to buy it then but never actually took the effort to order it. As I was
going to pick up my tent on the shelf that exact book was sitting on top of the
exact tent I wanted to by! Mind you, this was months later and not in the “book
section” of the store, in pure astonishment I knew there was some kind of
supernatural force that put that book there for me to find for this exact trip
I was about to take. So that book became part of my camping supplies for the
weekend and the staple to why I enjoyed my weekend getaway.
As I head west the sun is starting to set, I have the
windows down, and bluegrass playing on Pandora (I felt this was appropriate for
my unknown journey I had ahead of me). With any journey you run into obstacles,
and with any car trip you can run into glitches with your GPS, at least I do…and
that I did. As I pass by Rockford
I needed to change to a different highway but my GPS had other plans. With my
car’s tank nearly on empty I find myself on extremely steep gravel roads with
no one in site for miles and no cell phone service. With life when you feel a
little bit lost you just need to keep going knowing that there is something
great that is about to happen, so that I did and that great thing was me
running across a paved road and with a 50/50 chance of running into
civilization in one direction…I turned right.
Finally around 10 pm I arrive at Mississippi Palisades
Sate Park,
I was able to call ahead and the park ranger was even nice enough to stick
around and wait for me to arrive so I could check in for the night. With no
power at my camp site I set up my new tent in the headlights of my car while
every bug imaginable flies in my face as I disturb the ground that they chose
to call home for the night. As I settle in for the night I lay in my new tent
for several hours with a flashlight in hand reading my new book that was placed
right in front of me at the store. There was absolutely no where else I wanted
to be that night, the sound of the crickets singing, the lighting bugs dancing
on the outside ceiling of my tent, the faint sound of trains passing in the distance
as they sound their horn while they cross the countryside, and the cool summer
breeze as it passes through the tent…I, was happy.
Morning comes early in these parts, especially when there
are very large birds fighting over who gets what part of a branch of the tree
that hangs above my tent. I didn’t mind though, as I lay there looking at the
ceiling of my tent I knew that it is the beginning of one of the best days that
I haven’t had in a while. I get up go down the road to the small town and get
some coffee and breakfast. As I come back to my site I clean up and pack up for
the day the rain starts to set in, its not just a light rain, it is a down
pour. As I sit in my car trying to make my game plan I start to think what the
hell am I doing here? Then I said to myself “that’s nonsense you will have fun
today, rain and all”, so I turn on my car and start to drive, I end up winding
through the park up the steep hills to my first destination, Look Out Point.
With my umbrella in one hand and camera in the other I decide
its just water and as long as I keep my camera dry I really have nothing to lose.
As I walk down the stairs to the platform and the first glimpses of my coming
view I start to smile knowing I was meant to see this. For a long time I sat
and watched fog rolling across the hills, the suspended bridge to the South,
the mists of rain cutting through the landscape, the clouds heavy with rain,
and the fisherman on their small boats as they run for cover. For the rest of
the morning I spent my time going from look out point to look out point
discovering every view, and in amazement I only ran into two people the entire
time I was there. My goal on this trip was to talk to who ever I ran across and
really put myself out there and I came to find out when you do that people are
generally the same way, especially when you are the only ones still out in a
park in these types of weather conditions. Eventually the clouds broke and the
sun came out.
So as I turn my car back to RT. 84 to make my way back to
Chicago I find myself driving through the hills of Western Illinois, the green
fields and red barns are an amazing foreground to the to the blue sky and white
cloud backdrop. When I finally get to the intersection of RT. 20 I read a sign
that points one direction to Chicago and the other to Galena, as I look at the sign I think to
myself…I don’t want to go back there yet. So I take a left and head down the
road towards Galena.
This town is everything that this part of this country,
small local business that pride themselves on their community and the culture
of that community. The streets were busy with tourists and shoppers. As I pass
through some of the stores I find myself going in the antique stores looking
for old cameras, I found an old wind-up video camera from the early 60’s, I
talk with the shop owner and talk him down to 50% of what he originally was
asking for. As I go from shop to shop being my new outgoing self I talk with
the locals on where to eat and what to see. I eventually found myself sitting
in a sandwich and coffee shop over looking the river and enjoying my chicken
sandwich. Sitting at a table alone makes you aware of what is going on around
you, the conversations behind you at another table, the Oak trim of the
building, how often the waitress has to go up the stairs to the second floor,
who came in town to just shop for the day, how they make their coffee and a
general feel of the entire town.
As I make my way back to my car I stumble across the
blacksmith shop, this is one of the only original backsmith shops that is still
working and doing what it was originally built for. I talked with the backsmith
for awhile learning about the history of the building and the town and how one
of the original owners was sent to WWII to work on the artillery branch of the
services. Leaning about this town and all it had to offer was the most
enjoyable days of my summer so far, I have never been anywhere where I felt so
at home, so comfortable and so at easy with doing nothing all day long…it was
hard to leave.
As I head back to Chicago
I have my windows down and nothing on the radio. I wanted to hear the wind,
smell the air and think. A lot of us go through life fearing and always
thinking we need a plan but you can’t do a whole lot about what’s happened or
what may or may not happen in the future, the thing you have control over is
the very moment you are experiencing. We need to live in those moments because
we never know what those moments are going to bring. I had several friends trying
to contact me Friday night to see if I was going out for the night, when I told
them I just bought a tent and am going west to find somewhere to stay for the
night they all thought I was pretty crazy…I didn’t care. We as humans are not fashioned
for fear, its not how we were built nor how any of us want to live, so don’t go
through life fearing and worrying about what the next day might bring. Fear about the next day when it happens and deal with
it then…but for now live your life and oh yeah…try and smile a bit more.
