July 9, Friday
Lowden State Park
We left Fairport State Recreational Area around 11 am We bypassed Davenport and crossed the Mississippi River near Le Claire, and then followed Rock River the rest of the way into Lowden State Park.
We checked in with the host around 2 pm and backed into site #54. It was a long, narrow site with trees on the slide side that forced us to park close to the road. I put out some orange cones to keep anyone from clipping me.
Byron
During check-in, the camp host mentioned a festival that evening in Byron just up the road, so we headed over there after we finished setting up. We thought having some festival food for dinner that night might be fun. Along the way, we saw two cooling towers in the distance that we thought might be a nuclear power plant. It looked strange sitting by itself in the middle of the croplands.
The festival was still getting set up when we got there, so we decided to have a beer at a nearby bar called The Cave, which had a nice beer garden. Surprisingly, they only served bottled beers, so we drank a couple of domestic drinks while watching the festival get set up. We headed back to the festival when it looked like they were starting to open, but we discovered that there was an admission fee of $15 to enter. Since we did not plan to walk around and eat, we decided to leave.
We passed the Byron Museum of History on the way back to the truck. The building, we discovered, was an official National Park Service landmark and a part of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, one of 13 in Illinois. The 1843 building was a home and one of three “stations” in Byron that provided sanctuary to fleeing slaves on the way to Canada. Though Illinois was a free state, slave catching was still allowed, so the fugitive slaves needed to be helped to Canada.
Suggesting we continue driving around, I secretly plotted a course to an ice cream shop about an hour away. As we drove south, we passed within 50 yards of the cooling towers of the nuclear power plant. I was shocked that we were able to get so close. We could see and hear the water running in the cooling towers. We learned later that the Exelon – Byron Generating Station began operation in 1985 and generates enough electricity to supply two million homes in the Chicago area. The cooling towers are 495 feet tall.
Ashton
We continued south into the town of Ashton and stopped at an ice cream shop called Kristie’s Sweet Treats. You could not go inside, but they had a window facing the street where we placed our order. Because our earlier intention was to eat some carnival food, we splurged and ordered a huge funnel cake ice cream sundae to share. A patio table was nearby at a closed store, where we sat and enjoyed our ice cream.
Oregon
After finishing our ice cream, we headed north toward our campsite. We stopped at the Oregon Park East city park just south of the state park. There was an observation deck in the park where you could sit and watch the Rock River pour over the Oregon low-head dam. These types of dams are considered very dangerous because water going over a low-head dam creates a strong recirculating current or back roller at their base that can trap a boat or person against the face of the dam and pull them under the water—even while wearing a personal flotation device (PFD). Their purpose is to keep water levels high upstream of them
We viewed the dam from the observation platform from the deck and then walked below the dam for a different look. A neat 2005 statue called “From The Waters Comes My Bounty” in the park shows a Native American wearing a fish head and nets that depict the generosity of the life-giving waters to all things.
The Eternal Indian
When we returned to the State Park, we drove over to the 48-foot Eternal Indian statue overlooking the Rock River on a 77-foot bluff. Built 1908-1911 by Lorado Taft as a tribute to Native Americans, the hollow concrete statue is estimated to weigh 100 tons and is thought to be the second-largest concrete monolithic statue in the world.
Although Taft dedicated the statue to all Native Americans, the statue has commonly been associated with Black Hawk. Taft said the statue was inspired by the Sauk leader, but it is not a likeness of the chief.
Taft has many works, but one with a personal connection was the 1929 sculpture Alma Mater on the University of Illinois campus. Taft envisioned this 14-foot statue as a benign and magnificent woman dressed in classical draperies, rising from a throne and advancing a step forward with outstretched arms in a generous greeting to her children. Two figures behind her on either side represent the university’s motto, Learning and Labor.
We were back at the camper around 8 pm.
July 10 – 11, Saturday – Sunday
On Saturday, we spent the day at the campground with family. We originally planned on canoeing but canceled our trip because of the cold and wet weather. On Sunday, we spent some time with some of the family in Chicago before returning to the camper around 9 pm.
July 12, Monday
We left Lowden State Park around 10 pm and headed to Michigan.