Hiking the Halfway House

It has been a while since my last posting. It's not that I haven't had things to blog about, but moreso that I haven't had time to get it done. Probably more importantly, all of the things that I really want to blog about may or may not be career-limiting, so I will opt to keep them to myself. Cowardliness, right up next to cleanliness. That being said...

I took a trip to Starved Rock State Park this weekend, located somewhere between Chicago and Peoria (a.k.a., BFE Illinois.) The state park itself was interesting. I learned a few fun facts about native Americans, halfway houses, and sandstone. I really don't need to know or remember any of these facts, but I'm sure they'll find a place in my very limited and broken mind, most likely displacing other less important memories, such as my phone number or login password. Those of you who know me can vouch for the shortcomings of my memory. I'll try my best not to disappoint.

These cool tidbits (tidbits, a word only practically useful when describing pieces of information or sliced pineapple) of history were interesting and all, but the hiking itself wasn't anything special. The park itself had some cool trails, and I had an okay time hiking them, but it was, without a doubt, the most commercialized and processed state park I've even been to. If Joan Rivers were to develop a park, this would be it. Dirt and grass covered trails? No way. Almost everything is paved. Tricky hikes up steep hills? Nope, just use the wooden stairs. The freakin' lodge at the center of the park was nicer than any house I've ever lived in. Don't even get me started on the bathrooms.

But what was really interesting..., what really made the day for me..., was the co-mingling of two different peoples: Chicagoans and Peorians. Ying and Yang. Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum. It became very apparent that these cultures were, at best, a sociological split unparalleled by any previous culture. From the ritzy to the trashy, from the sweat-stained blue collar to the gold-lined white, it was a potpourri of idiocy.

A few concrete examples might help:

• The two metrosexual men who were bickering over how to get the appropriately angled photograph of a canyon wall. Not the opposing canyon wall, but the one underneath the ledge on which they were standing. Had I not known better, I'd have thought to have finally found the long lost escapees of the not-so-well-known "Elton John / Lemur" cross-breeding experiments of the late 70's.
• The strange parallel tracks on the trail, obviously left by some species of buddy-traveling Midwestern snakes, that led to a family, consisting of two young girls, a mother and father, and a baby in a stroller. This alone is not very interesting at all, but picture the father wearing a sweat drenched wife-beater, the mother in some sort of a tube-top which emphasized her abundant post-pregnancy waistline more than here bust, together carrying a stroller down a sandy, root-interlaced, and awkward stairway. Insert into this the father grumbling about how he would never do this again and the mother, in a perfectly trailer-trained dialect, screaming at the two girls to slow down or they would be left behind.
• The Asian couple that were, I presume, trying to teach their young 3-4 year old boy a lesson. This consisted of walking well ahead of the boy, making him scream with fear and anger, while trying to run over a rough trail, regularly tripping and falling. Oh, for added affect, this particular trail bordered one of the several ravines in the park.

All in all, I think I only saw around 2-3 individuals or groups in the park that were there to both enjoy the scenery, and were prepared to make the necessary hike. I thought I came prepared with a pair of Merrels and a dromedary bag. I was obviously wrong. What I really needed was a over-tightly fitting shirt, a child obviously too small to be hiking, and some sort of a mechanical device that doesn't fair well on rough ground... possibly a wheeled laundry sorter. Then, and only then, would I have been truly prepared for this trip.