After the Blip

Everyone in our family is a big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so the parallel between the fictional havoc wreaked by Thanos' snap and the global chaos of our real-life COVID pandemic was eerily obvious to us. 

Life imitating art, if you will. 

Now that we are all fully vaccinated and things are opening up, we frequently talk about life after "The Blip". Using this pop culture reference is an intentional way for me to avoid saying "back to normal", because what is "normal" really?! 

Which brings us to the reason for this blog post - traveling to see our extended family for the first time in almost 18 months! Yay!

The flight from LAX-ORD yesterday was uneventful, although I still felt uneasy about being in close quarters with so many people. I know, I know. I'm vaccinated and it's irrational, but this introvert didn't mind the lack of contact with people over the past 15 months.

After we picked up the rental car, we headed straight for the drive-thru at Steak 'n Shake and then hopped on the tollway. Our hotel for the night was in LaSalle-Peru (same place we stayed in 2017 after the DCI show in DeKalb) since we were going to hike Matthiessen State Park in the morning.

Because this academic year was all online, it effectively turned both of my Bruins into vampires (who needs to roll out of bed before mid-afternoon when lectures are pre-recorded?!) I was pleasantly surprised that they were actually able to get up early this morning, even with the 2-hour time difference. After breakfast (serving hot items like pre-Blip times), we checked out and drove over to the Dells Area of the park.  

We started out hiking counterclockwise on the Bluff Trail along the rim to Matthiessen Lake, and then down some stairs to the canyon bottom, where we found a mostly dry path to the base of Lake Falls

Lake Falls

Then we followed the Interior Canyon Trail downstream, past Giant's Bathtub and Cedar Point.

Giant's Bathtub

Back at the middle bridge, we climbed back up to the Bluff Trail, continuing around the Lower Glen until we reached another set of stairs down to the other end of the Interior Canyon Trail.

The weather was really comfortable, so the hiking was quite pleasant and not too buggy. I imagine that it must be totally gorgeous here in the fall when the leaves are changing color and more water is flowing.

From here, it was about another 1.5 hours to my parents' house. Instead of taking the interstate, we drove through several small towns along IL-89. Fun to give the boys a different view than what they normally get when we visit Illinois!

Of course, my mom had taken our menu requests well in advance, so we had green onion pancakes for lunch and a feast of Chinese dishes for dinner. We'll have to keep hiking to offset our food intake over the next couple days...

Clockwise from top: duck, spicy eggplant, braised short ribs, shrimp, bean sprouts, mapo tofu