Advocate I
Yeah, we live in one of those cool/quirky little towns and the GPS often times takes us on county roads to get places, some of which are just gravel, but it's still largely passing by corn or soybean fields. Load up Google Maps, switch to satellite view, pick a random spot in Illinois, zoom in. Flat fields everywhere with a few exceptions. We have forest preserves here (one right across the road from our neighborhood) that we'll walk or bike around. There used to be various festivals, like Soda Fest where craft soda companies would come and you could sample and buy sodas, have some good food from food trucks, etc, but that's been ruined by COVID and the attempt to restart it was pretty bad as it was more about local businesses trying to promote themselves than anything. The soda companies weren't there anymore, it was just local businesses handing out samples of soda while they try and drum up business. :/ About a mile away is an R/C park (airplanes, drones, off-road cars, etc) that has a 2-3 events per year. We've also got a railway museum neighboring the R/C park with a running steam loco and such. Not to say that if you've seen one little Illinois town you've seen them all, and I do enjoy driving, but short of places like Cave-in-Rock or Garden of the Gods in southern IL (3.5 hours away) or Starved Rock (1.5 hours away), or Kickapoo State Park (1 hour away and good for floating on a river), or even going to Chicago for a weekend (for the food and city sights), it's really quite bland here. Even the food (outside of Chicago) is pretty disappointing if you come from or have been to places that actually have good food.I live so far in the sticks I have Starlink for internet at my house....but I digress.
Admittedly, I know close to nothing about IL...other than I saw a police car back in 2003 that had a "NORMAL POLICE" decal on the side of the car on my way to Kalamazoo to pick up a Jeep. I still chuckle about that to this day
I did a quick look around central IL and found plenty of small towns with one restaurant that would be worth some time to visit. I am also a historic rail fan and see plenty of derelict depot sites to geek out on. Looks like there are several historic bridges that need checked out too. Heck, Route 66 is in your backyard and a destination many folks seek out. Dang it, now I want to explore the backroads of IL. Exploring your backyard isn't necessarily about putting the truck in 4wd, it is about checking out those weird, quirky, historical sites and landmarks that noooooobody gives a second thought about. Sometimes an old, rough, paved county road will lead you right where you didn't know you wanted to go. It's all about how you perceive your surroundings and journey, especially when the destination is simply getting back home.
Here is a trip report I did several years ago about traveling through Western Kansas...you know, the part of Kansas everybody tries to get through as fast as possible on the interstate because it is so boring on their way to the West.
I am part of an overlanding and adventure group on FB as well, most members live near Chicago which means they're a lot closer to Wisconsin which as things like the Trans Wisconsin Adventure Trail, or heading over to Michigan. It also means there's a lot of "what is there to do?" questions from new members and by and large the answer is "drive to another state." haha
Perhaps I'll get my R/C rock crawler out from storage and freshen it up to at least bring with me/us in case the opportunity to use it presents itself.
