Ottawa 2026 Week 2
Week 2 in Ottawa, IL | Hiking in Starved Rock State Park | Section Hiking the I&M Canal Trail | February 2026
Curtis’ second week of work consisted of him working 10 hour days, and of us getting into the rhythm of being back in outage season. Each night when he returned, we’d go out for dinner somewhere in Ottawa and go for a short walk in the dark downtown. We made it a goal to try some of the restaurants that we’ve driven by over the years but never visited. I think our favorites in Ottawa are still the same, but we’re glad we gave all the others a chance.
When the weekend came around, Curtis had three days ‘off’ as he was shifting into night shift. On the first day, we returned to Starved Rock State Park for some hiking, hoping for some better conditions as the week had brought some warmer weather, but also some snow. We started today’s visit by hiking up to the actual Starved Rock — something we had somehow never done, or tricked ourselves into thinking we had done some previous year? Either way, it’s kinda funny that it took us this long to walk up the park’s namesake. The paved path up to the steps was a bit icy today, but the steps were cleared and soon we were on the top of the rock, with a great vantage point looking down at the dam, with eagles, hawks, and seagulls soaring in the skies above. There was a short interpretive loop around the top, where we learned both about the birds we were seeing (did you know that the bald eagle doesn’t have the full white/bald head until it’s 5 years old??) and also about the area’s dark history. It turns out Starved Rock was named that because the natives were literally surrounded by the enemy, stuck on the rock, starving…. I don’t know why I never wondered how it got that name. Now we know.
After that, we decided to hike to St. Louis Canyon, another favorite from our first year here. We started from the trail on the far side of the large parking lot, taking time to first check out Aurora Canyon on our way. A fallen tree made it difficult to get back to the end of the canyon, but we could see the top of it from the trail to St. Louis Canyon enough to know we didn’t miss anything there today. Because of the past weekend and what we had just seen in Aurora Canyon, we honestly weren’t expecting much more than what we saw here last time. But Starved Rock seems to never be the same twice and the views were much better today! We spent a long time here, enjoying the icy spectacle from every angle — up close where we could admire the details, and from further back to take it all in. It was quite busy this morning, so we never had time alone here like we did last time, but it was worth seeing again nonetheless.
St. Louis Canyon in February 2023 with Charlotte
We wrapped up our hike, then returned to Bruce and Ollie’s in North Utica. This small deli & coffee shop had become an instant favorite last week, and we were happy to return and give them our business. After lunch, we set out on another walk on the I&M Canal Trail, heading East from North Utica and walking about 2 miles in that direction. The trail followed a rural road for a while passed some homes, then when the road ended, it continued into the woods. The walk was easy as it was all flat, and much more pleasant with the temps in the 30s. We made a bridge our turnaround point, hoping that would be easy to remember when we hiked the trail from the East toward this point.
On Sunday, we drove to La Salle to hike some more of the trail, now that we had this goal in mind of hiking it in its entirety from its terminus in La Salle to Ottawa. We had hiked the trail from this direction in 2023, our first year in the area, but had just gone to the trail’s end to the West and as far as the railroad bridge to the East. Today, we headed East, walking all the way to Split Rock, which was about 4 miles round trip. As we walked under the railroad bridge, my mind brought back happy memories of walking this stretch with Charlotte, in what would end up being her last month before going blind. I have a video of her walking this path at a rapid pace, and I remember looking at that right after she went blind and mourning the idea that she might never walk that fast and confident again. I turned out to be wrong about that — the more experience she had walking and the more we helped her build up confidence, the faster she went, to the point where people passing by might not even notice that she couldn’t see.
The walking was easy this morning, and before we knew it we were at the Split Rock landmark. There were a few signs here about the history of this area, and we learned that there had once been a lift to the top of the rock that took passengers up over the water to the top of the rock, and there used to be a bar at the top. We also enjoyed the small view we had of the railroad tunnel through the giant rock on the opposite side of the old canal. We briefly considered how we might get a better view, but abandoned the idea because it involved crossing a semi-frozen creek and railroad tracks. Oh well, it was a cool landmark to see, and later we would have the opportunity to return when hiking from the opposite direction.
We returned to La Salle, then went in search of lunch. Part of us was tempted to return to Bruce & Ollies, but when we learned there was a small cafe inside the I&M Canal Visitor Center we decided to give it a chance. We had to stop there anyway for stamps and our passport challenge! The cafe turned out to have delicious soup and sandwiches, and we enjoyed chatting with our server about the visitor center, the trail, and the canal boat that they used to run. Sadly it had just been shut down after last summer’s season, and they’re currently looking for a buyer for the boat. We were never in the area during the season when the boat was running, so sadly we may never get to experience the canal by water.
After a full day of exploring, we returned to Ottawa where Curtis started the process of flipping his sleep schedule in preparation for shift work.
Hiking the I&M Trail in La Salle with Charlotte, March 2023
