Kankakee River State Park, Illinois
Another empty park
We had another park to ourselves at Kankakee River State Park in Illinois. We arrived on a gloomy Monday. We later learned the park had just open a few days earlier. That and the weather probably explained the park’s lack of campers. Maybe not everyone wants to camp when its 50 degrees F and raining.
On Monday, we arrived a little later that we like to, but with high winds and rain, our journey to the park was a little slower than normal. We had a bit of excitement along the Interstate when the dashboard warned me that our trailer brakes had disconnected. There wasn’t an exit coming up, so I decided to pull over on the shoulder and investigate. It seemed the harness came loose in its socket. Stopping it felt like we still had trailer brakes, so it was probably just loose enough to trigger the warning. The exiting part came when I wanted back into the truck. I swear about twenty tractor trailers showed up then. I stayed in front of the truck as safely as I could and waited out the onslaught. When it was all done, at least I wasn’t tired anymore.
The park itself was very nice, even if getting water wasn’t the easiest. Each loop (there are four) has one water source in the middle of the loop. We don’t carry enough hose to reach it from the road, so I had to port water over. While dumping our tanks on our way out of the park, we asked the host about the water faucet that’s near the dump area. It’s not labeled as such, but it is drinkable water as long as you use your own hose.
The strangest thing I found in our loop was a small cabin in the campsite next to ours. It almost looks like it’s some sort of small camp store in the high season, but it’s hard to tell because the only markings on it was a “closed” sign and all the windows were boarded up. We called it the haunted house.
To get to the park, we had to travel along Historic Route 66. As we often see when we travel the Mother Road, there were kitschy signs and attractions. We passed by a truck stop in Elwood, just south of Joliet, that featured a replica of the Blues Brothers car hoisted up high where the station sign would normally go. The most amazing thing we saw was a statue outside of the Launching Pad restaurant in Wilmington. The statue depicted a 1950’s rocket man towering about 20 feet tall named “Gemini Giant.” I was happy when sun finally came out on our last morning there so I could go get some good photographs of it.
On our last full day there, a Friday, many more people set up camp. I imagine in a weekend-or-two, it will be full on the weekends. The people that set up across from us were local – he said he was about 20 minutes away – and everyone else we saw had Illinois plates, so I assume the others weren’t coming from too far away. Even though the weather was gloomy, we enjoyed our stay at Kankakee River State Park. We definitely recommend the park if you’re going to be in the area.