Weekending - September 8, 2017

Happy Monday!  If you were like us, it was hard to tear ourselves away from the Hurricane Irma coverage.  We managed to get out to enjoy the gorgeous weather and do some fun stuff while keeping track of what was going on with our friends in Florida.  As the sun sets on the weekend, I thought I'd pop in and give you a recap of the things we did.

Friday night we joined Ian and Kayla at the Clayton Art Fair.  We meandered through the streets of Clayton enjoying the artist exhibits that had taken over the streets.  Soon our stomachs were reminding us it was dinner time and we found ourselves at Cantina Laredo.  Eric and I shared the guacamole made table side.

The barbacoa tacos were calling my name and they were delicious!  Great Friday night dinner.

Saturday morning we headed to southern Illinois in search of waterfalls and some hiking.  The waterfall search was a complete bust.  The three waterfalls we had scoped out online were all dried up and only creek beds remained.  Hopefully we'll get some rain this fall and can revisit when they are actually "falling".

By early afternoon we arrived at Garden of the Gods in the Shawnee National Forest in Herod, Illinois.

There were two hiking trails that we felt comfortable taking on and enjoyed both of them.  The scenery is magnificent!  The first hike was on Observation Trail, a 1/2 mile loop that offered many boulders to climb and explore.  

Just down the road maybe a quarter of a mile was our second hiking spot - Indian Point Trail.  This 1.8 mile span went through the woods with a couple surprise overlooks.  Most of the trail followed along the bottom ledge of a rock cliff.  

After exploring Garden of the Gods, we drove approximately 12 miles to Elizabethtown, Illinois which is the fourth oldest city in the state.  It sits on the Ohio River and is just a stone throw away from Kentucky.  The E-Town River Restaurant was the perfect place for us sweaty (and maybe a little stinky) hikers.  We sat outside on the upper deck and enjoyed our dinner while the river flowed below us.

I'm a sucker for sunsets and it didn't take much convincing to get Eric to go back to Garden of the Gods to see what the skies would look like as the sun sat.  I had packed a bottle of wine and was so glad we did! 

Our views of the sunset were well worth going back and waiting for the sun to drip below the horizon.

 It was a great day and I hope we have an opportunity to revisit the area when the leaves are changing colors and the water is running in the waterfalls.

You might remember that a few weeks ago Ian and Kayla adopted a cat from the Humane Society.  My little grandcat, Albus, has a vet appointment on Monday and I wanted his carrier to be the coolest one in the waiting room.  I think Albus now thinks his carrier is the cat's meow!

I have a busy week ahead, and am already looking forward to next weekend.  U2 is coming to St. Louis ~ me and my friend Linda will be there!  Eric and I will also be joining friends for the Ed Sheeran concert on Sunday night.  Fun times like that will make the work I have to do this week well worth it!  You have to work hard to play hard, right?!?  I'll also be sharing the final two days of our Paris trip with you this week.

Hope you have a wonderful week and look forward to you popping in again!

Check out what others were up to this weekend.

B Loved Boston

Over the Moon