Starved Rock, Ottawa, IL

Picked up hire car (Toyota RAV4, with Massachusetts plates, not in very good condition). Drove to Ottawa, a small town by the Illinois river, which only took around 2 hours, much more straightforward getting out of Chicago than I expected, with interstate 55 starting right next to the lake. Ottawa is a very small town, a grid of around 9 blocks, 3 streets by 3, so it didn't take much exploring. Had a sandwich for lunch then headed across the river to explore the Starved Rock national park. Walked along the canyon trail, and back along the river, not as far as I had expected. Unfortunately all the waterfalls were dried up, but that meant we were able to walk along to the bottom of one of the canyons. I had planned for us to spend most of Friday exploring the trails, but we'd seen enough in the couple of hours that we were there.