Ruthie Lanigan: Hands in The Dirt......... and in the forest, and to the waterfalls.

Days 3 and 4 ....... the fun continues.

Friday night it rains......... hard. I wake multiple times through the night and listen to the glorious sound of rain pounding on the roof.

Saturday, after a nice breakfast we prepare to head out for the day. As we are about to leave we see someone outside the cabin. We realize he is delivering grill cleaner/scrapers to each of the cabins for the barbecue grills. As one would expect, Jim and I go out to talk to him. We find out he and his wife are the owners. We talk to him for quite some time. Amazing . We find out how they purchased the property and their vision. Amazingly we find out a friend of his (who happens to be in his truck waiting for him) is the owner of the cabin where we stayed the first time we camped in Southern Illinois. The more we talk, the more interesting it becomes. The last thing we find out is that after they purchased the property his wife suggested they get a Big Foot to put at the corner of the property at the intersection. His response was "Oh Honey, that's just a crazy idea". Then a couple minutes later he looked at her and said, "How big of one do you think we would need?" .
This is Sassy............. weighing in at 2600 pounds.

Once we head out from the cabin our fist stop is Burden Falls. Just as Jim said, the falls are flowing great! We climb the rocks and admire the beautiful falls. This is one of the many great photos. The two falls to the left apparently only flow during rain. Wet weather falls only. I am honored to have seen them.

We did quite a bit of climbing over rocks, through water and at the edge of cliffs. Jim pushed my comfort level and I am very glad he did!

Below are a few more of the photos we took..

Our next stop is Bell Smith Springs. We are not terribly impressed but still a nice hike.

Finally, we make it to Jackson Fall. WOW! Stunning! I will let the photos do the talking. Again, Jim pushed my comfort level, but I survived!

As you can see, we are having a great time!

By the end of the day, we are exhausted. And filthy. We go back to the cabin to change clothes and find somewhere to eat.

We find a "restaurant" somewhat close. This is a story all by itself. We follow Google Maps to the restaurant. The Trails End Restaurant at the Double M Campground. It is is horse campground. As we are getting close, there are a couple choices of which building the restaurant is in. We pull in one are and ask a couple people that are standing there "Excuse me, is the restaurant in this building?". They turn and look at us and tell us no but point us to where it is. Very friendly. Probably could tell we weren't from around there. We find the restaurant and have wonderful dinner. The locals were an interesting group though to say the least. We sat outside next to a table of six. Local people. During the conversation we heard many things. "That was the night I got in trouble with those women dancers" and "She told me she was taking karate. I told her I used to know karate when I was younger. Then - kapow! She hit me in the nose". We drank our tea and made our way out of there.

Sunday morning. It's time to pack up. We make the decision to head over to Little Grand Canyon on the way home. I cook breakfast and we pack up and head out. We have a beautiful drive. ot much traffic. Great skies.

Yet another stunning place. We climbed rocks (Jim more so than me) and hiked quite a bit. The views are wonderful and we have a great time.

After we hike, it's time to head toward home. we stop at a winery on the way for a little rest.
Hickory Ridge Winery. HIGHLY RECOMMEND! We meet some really great people from all over the place.