Like a first kiss or a loved one’s last
touch or your child’s precious gap-toothed smile, autumn is
one of those profoundly sweet experiences that tends to come and go
before you’ve had chance to properly savor the moment.
Don’t let that happen again this year. Go out and wallow in
the fall.
There’s a variety of ways to immerse
yourself in seasonal color. For a fresh angle on the fall, view the
forest from the middle of the Mississippi River. Beginning Sept.
30, Celebration River Cruises offers four-hour foliage tours aboard
a luxury nongaming excursion vessel based in Moline. The boat
departs at 11 a.m. and returns at 3 p.m. The ticket price ($47 per
adult, $37 per child) includes lunch. More information is available
online at celebrationbelle.com or by phone at 800-297-0034.
For a total-immersion experience, try the
“nature hayride” at Pumpkin Works in Paris. Ride an
open-air wagon through a 100-acre forest as a naturalist answers
all of your questions about what makes maples turn red and birches
turn yellow. Details are available online at pumpkinworks.com, or
call 217-275-3327.
For those who like a jangly soundtrack to the
harvest season, there’s the Western Illinois Bluegrass Fall
Festival, Sept. 17 and 18, with live music performed under a canopy of
colorful foliage at the Old Lake Hillsboro campgrounds. Admission
prices start at $9 for Friday or Saturday night and top out at $20 for
the entire weekend. Call 217-532-6332 for more information.
Then, of course, there’s the legendary
Spoon River Valley Scenic Drive, scheduled as it has been for the
past 37 years for the first two full weekends in October. Each
small community in Fulton County adds its own special touch to make
this festival a calendar classic.
Grab a map online at spoonriverdrive.org and
plot your journey. More than 100 miles of scenic roads connect
almost three dozen historic and cultural attractions, such as the
300-year-old burr oak on Highway 9 in Fiatt, beautiful iron bridges
in Bernadotte and Babylon, Victorian homes in Vermont, an
Underground Railroad station in Farmington, art studios in
Smithfield, and the state’s smallest operating library in
Ellisville. In Lewiston, Oak Hill Cemetery hosts readings from Edgar
Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology.
All along the way, an endless array of
merchants offers tasty treats and keepsakes. You can watch apple
butter being made at London Mills, try the famous Ellisville ham in
Ellisville, and learn why the Farmington Odd Fellows are famous for
their butterflied pork chops. At the fairgrounds in Lewiston, you
will find a flea market, crafts, and a variety of food vendors.
Complete information is available on the Web
site, or call 309-647-8980.
This article appears in Sep 1-7, 2005.
