Not Your Ordinary Greyhound Tackles Starved Rock State Park

During the long holiday weekend, we were blessed with some absolutely beautiful weather.  We did quite a bit of hiking and hopefully we won't bore you with all the hiking pictures and stories.  Saturday we hiked closer to home since Mr. Taleteller and Morgan had class in the morning.  That allowed us to take Blueberry along, since Farmdale Park isn't a difficult place to hike.  Sunday we decided to venture out to Starved Rock State Park.  This time, it was only Morgan and Bunny who went, because neither Mr. Taleteller nor I are up to carrying a seventy pound Greyhound out of those canyons.

I visited Starved Rock often as a kid and I am well familiar with its history.  The park is comprised of eighteen canyons formed by glacial meltwater.  The Illiniweks, actually a subtribe known as the Kaskaskias, were in residence there in 1673 when two French explorers, Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette came and laid claim to the land.  Later, in the winter of 1682-83 Fort Saint Louis was built because it commanded such control over the Illinois River.  However, in the early 1700s raids by the Iroquois forced them to abandon the fort and move south to where Peoria is now located and build Fort Pimitoui.  Fort Saint Louis continued to be used by traders and fur trappers until the late 1720s, but then all but the barest remains of the fort were gone.  The park takes its name from a sad tale of retribution amongst the Illini tribes.  In the 1760s, Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa tribe was slain by a member of the Illiniwek tribe while attending a council meeting in southern Illinois.  There were battles fought to avenge his killing.  During one of the battles, a tribe of Illiniwek fled up the sandstone cliffs and were surrounded by the Potowatomi and Ottawa tribes.  There was no way for the Illiniwek to escape, and finally, they all either starved to death or jumped to their deaths in the Illinois River.  It was forever after known as Starved Rock.

As we hiked through the trails, I was extremely impressed by Bunny.  At one point, we were asked by someone about her athletic abilities and if she was as muscular as she is because of her training to race.  Mr. Taleteller informed them that "she's not your ordinary Greyhound" and that many don't like to be as active as she is.  It is now, at this point in her life, that I am extremely glad that I got her at such a young age.  She's been able to be on the go from such a young age that it has helped her a lot, but I think a lot of it is just her personality, too.  Blueberry has never been as excited to go to new places as Bunny has.  Bunny is always willing to go and give it her best shot.  At one point, she was forging ahead of Morgan on the endless stairs that we had to climb up and down.  She never batted an eye about giving things a try, and carried her Wolf Pack the entire way.

Morgan also did extremely well.  Her Wolf Pack isn't here yet, but it's on its way, so she wore another pack today to get used to things.  She was really social with people, which was a relief since the park was packed.  Many people asked to pet her, and Morgan was fine with all of them except one.  There was one man that she just wasn't having any part of letting touch her, and honestly, that's much better than we expected from her.

We were thrilled to see a lot of people there with dogs, too.  We saw everything from a giant black Great Dane to a Chihuahua who was being carried more than he was walking.  A lot of people commented on Bunny, talked to her and petted her.  She loved every minute of it!  I was surprised to note that we met people from Russia, Mexico, Canada, Japan and Germany and they were all charmed by our tiny girl.  She certainly doesn't suffer shyness or lack of ability to make friends.

It was so nice to be able to be out and experience the outdoors with the girls.  We visited French Canyon and felt very small.  The girls both cooled off their feet in the water there, and we took a break to drink some water. 

The girls were impressed to see some local wildlife.  Fortunately, it was a toad and a squirrel this time.  The bears that used to live in this area have moved on.  Morgan and Bunny certainly were ready to help the squirrels relocate, too.

All in all, we hiked over two hours and about six miles, so the girls were real troopers.  That was a lot farther than they've gone before, and the terrain was a lot more strenuous, too.  The best part was that after we had so much fun, we brought home some very tired dogs.  We will definitely be going back soon to admire the Fall colors!