As I wandered around Maquoketa Caves State Park on Day 5 of my Iowa tour, I kept thinking about how similar this place is to Illinois’s Starved Rock State Park. I had visited Starved Rock during my Illinois State Vacation five and a half years ago and found it to be a wonderland of small box canyons and waterfalls. Sadly, (actually, angrily) all my photos of Starved Rock State Park have been lost.

Since I had allotted two full days for Maquoketa Caves State Park and “finished” it in just one, I had a day to kill (or at least maim), and since Starved Rock State Park was already on my mind, I checked Google Maps to see whether a venture across the border would be viable. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Maquoketa is just a two-hour drive from Starved Rock. And so, it was decided: my Iowa State Vacation would include a day in Illinois.

As it turns out, the decision to go to Starved Rock was not a good one. The temperature was 90 degrees when I arrived at the park. Furthermore, the trails were longer and more difficult than I remembered. I went on one relatively short hike, got very few pictures, then threw in the sweat-soaked towel. Here are the few decent photos I got:

On the way to and from Starved Rock, I passed through a small town that appears to be called North Utica. Its whole downtown (a whopping one block of one street) has been converted into a pedestrian mall. I stopped and strolled around. It appears to be half micro-breweries and half winery-tasting rooms. Makes me wonder what a winery would taste like.