I finally went back to the casino on Friday. I only took a small amount with me and I won enough to put some gas in my car. It sure did feel good to get back to playing again instead of sitting around at home. In between playing craps I took time out and enjoyed a free buffet over looking the Fox River.
When I woke up today I saw that it was a beautiful sunny day out and there won't be many more of those. I started thinking about what I could do. In my last post I mentioned the trail I used to walk on with my friend Bob when we were kids. It's Saturday and I thought he would be home. I headed for his house. The new Des Plaines Casino they are building is only a few blocks away from his home. I wanted to stop and see how far they had gotten with the construction. I parked across the street from it in a little parking lot in the forest preserve. Of course I had my camera with me and I took some picture so I could show you how far along it is.
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After I left, I went over to Bob's house but he wasn't home. The forest preserve with the tails that Bob and I use to play on when we were kids is only about a mile from his house. I parked my car in the preserve
and went over to the trail. The trail starts by the highway and goes straight back all the way to the river.
As I started walking I looked up at all the old oak trees and I recognized a lot them. I remember saying to myself, "That tree was there when I was 12 years old." The memories of playing on the trails came flooding into my brain. I felt like a kid again.
Half way down this long trail on the left is an old path that I recognized. It has some old stone boarders on either side. Back when we were kids we use to bring our BB guns with us. Of course you weren't aloud to have then in the forest. Back then all the trails were used for horse back riding and they also had forest rangers patrolling the woods. Well at this particular spot on the trail we saw somebody on a horse riding our way. We threw our BB guns in the weeds so we wouldn't get caught. We didn't see very many forest rangers but we ran across a couple of them when we were kids.
Up until the 1970's they didn't have any roads you could drive on to park your car. This was just all forest back then. Back then this was considered the boonies. Then eventually they put the superhighway through the woods that led to O'Hara airport which is only a few miles west of here.
As I got near the end of the trail where it meets the Des Plaines river, I could picture all of us guys trying to build a raft so we could float down the river. It was filthy water even back then. One of our crazy friends went swimming in it while we were gathering the logs to build the raft. The raft didn't hold together very long and a couple of guys went in. They made it back OK. I knew it wouldn't hold together so I didn't get on it.
I went over to the river and I saw this old motorcycle laying at the bottom of the river. It looked like someone went barreling down the path and went over the edge into the river. I wondered what the story on that was.
I looked down stream to see what else I could find.
It was getting hot out and the sun was beating down on me. So I decided to head back. While I was crawling back up the bank of the river, I saw this old twisted dead tree laying there. It had a cool pattern to it, Click, Click, I took a close up picture of it.
When I got back to the top, there are three ways you can go, straight back from were I came or to the right on this path heading south.
This path takes you deep into the woods with trails leading everywhere. There is an old foundation back in there. We discovered it when we were kids. It used to be a garage or part of an old farmhouse. The first time we saw it, there was an old model T or something like it half buried in the ground. The top and the back were sticking out of the ground. We tried to dig it out but it was useless. Eventually the whole thing just rotted away.
Bob took me back there a couple of years after my heart attack. We found a lot of old broken bottle and junk. Bob also discovered an old garbage dump that must have been used by the farmers. Him and his brother have gone digging there and found an old wind up toy, old bottles and assorted stuff. I've never been there.
Then there is the other path to your left that takes you north. It doesn't go that far because it runs into the Kennedy Expressway.
I started back the way I came, regressing in my mind as I was walking. Pretending that I was 12 again and I had my BB gun with me.
I started thinking about my mom and dad and my home as I was walking. I wished I was little again and heading back home in time to have dinner with them.
This is the end of the trail. Back when we were kids this road ran through the corn fields. It used to be a two lane road we called the "Drag Strip" because it goes a quarter of a mile and then ends. We used to watch the cars drag down there all the time. I saw a couple of the cars crack up at the other end.
Beyond that, I only had to walk a couple of blocks until I was home.
Hi Mom, I'm home!
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