On our summer bucket list was to leave the state of Iowa.
We didn't know how or when it was going to happen, but now we can check it off!
One of my tutoring families recommended this place in ILLINOIS,
and it turned out SUPER for us!
A 3 1/2 hour drive, overnight stay, and came home the next day!
Here is the fun we had!
Our first stop: McDs for shakes and frappes on a HOT 100 degree day!
Avery caught a nice 45 minute nap on the drive to Illinois
Aubrey caught about 10 minutes of shut-eye, just want she needed.
We made it to Grizzly Jack's Resort!
The MOST exciting part might have been that we
got the girls BUNK BEDS!
After checking in and getting settled,
we grabbed an early supper at 5:00 at the resort's restaurant.
We had a $20 voucher so ordered pizza and chocolate milks :)
From the girls: THE BEST WATERPARK EVER!
They each did this slide probably 50 times, no joke!
The waterpark was a little aged, but it was PERFECT for the girls!
We spent almost 3 hours there that night!
Two exciting things happened for Aubrey at the waterpark:
1- She FLOATED on her own for almost 1 minute!
(something she has tried at swimming lessons but has never
been able to do it for more than 2 seconds!
2- She went down a TUBE SLIDE by herself!
(probably 20 times!)
PS - Avery is a FISH and LOVES water - in fact she may have been
a bit overconfident in her skills, but she LOVED it, too!
We had to leave the pool for about 15 minutes for a mandatory
pool check, so we came up for snacks in our room!
Showers and jammies and bunk bed fun!
Day 2: The girls woke up early so we
decided to take advantage of the day!
We brought breakfast and checked out the resort.
We were going to do an early mini-golf, but it was still a little wet from the rain.
Two minutes from our resort was the
Starved Rock State Park!
It had rained that morning and it was HOT AND STEAMY
but that didn't stop us!
We started our hiking just before 9 a.m.
Turning around before even starting our hike,
since we went the wrong way :)
IT WAS SO STEAMY!
The morning rain and humidity, just made us sweat!
Aubrey wanted to take a picture of this....
...and of her sister :)
Now we were on the right trail and sweating!
(you can see the steam from the water)
YAY - we found a bench for some snacks and WATER break!
We were at the very top and if you look closely you can see the waterfall.
We didn't know if we wanted to hike all the way down since it was
ALL STAIRS, but Aubrey really wanted to, so we did!
We had to climb down to that!
It looks like a steep drop off with no more stairs.
Nope, it was just STEEP stairs!
Ugh, we MADE IT!
Once again Aubrey wanted a photo :)
Cooling off with our hands in the water!
Yup, we were dripping sweat!
Avery did pretty well walking MOST of the trails and hiking
(about 3 miles round trip), but Daddy did spoil her with carrying her :)
By 11:00 we were finished hiking and came back to our resort
to use our FREE mini-golf tickets!
Aubrey and Daddy do well mini-golfing.
I just hold the clubs and snacks, and Avery walks through water
and falls in the mud holes :)
This hole was fun...you could put it through the water and it
would still make it to the green properly!
Picnic lunch by the swampy and steamy Illinois River
A nice pit-stop for Dad: ANTIQUE ARCHAEOLOGY,
from the History Channel's show "American Pickers"
in Le Claire, IA
We just mostly looked around, but we did buy our obligatory shot glass.
Checking out the MISSISSIPPI River in Le Claire.
Since it was so hot, we needed a quick ice cream stop
before driving home and hitting some shopping on the way back!
What a LOVELY little 2 day getaway!
