poking the rust

Jill recently completed a small house project:  chalkboard paint wall!  The east wall of our bedroom is now yellowish-green with lots of chalk marks.  Guess who has enjoyed the wall the most so far?

We're continuing to tour local parks and forest preserves.  Last weekend we visited Riverbend Forest preserve (home of the largest lake in Champaign county).  There are some nice trails, and the lake has a very fun pier with some covered benches and tables.

We have been to Kickapoo state park on a number of occasions, especially back in our mountain biking days.  Never before had we checked out the other parks nearby, so today we went to Kennekuk forest preserve.  As a bonus, my parents are in town this week, so we left the kids at home with them.  No one complained about being tired or hungry the whole time!

There are a zillion trails through the park, but we didn't have much time before we got hungry (okay, so maybe what I said before wasn't true).  We hiked only a couple trails.

It's very Kickapoo-esque, but no one was out on the trails.

Usually on the way home from the Kickapoo area, lunch is at either of the pizza places in St Joseph.  Since we were on the east side of the North fork, we decided to try our luck in Danville, former home of a GM foundry, currently avoided like the plague by most Urbana residents.

We found a restaurant downtown (there are 2?).  Pretty decent food that was reasonably priced.  The downtown area is about 6 square blocks with some pretty nice looking old buildings, most currently occupied by second-hand stores.  It's a little depressing, but maybe there is potential (Chambana never bothered to build a downtown.).

Finally, it's 10:15pm and Janny is walking around with her magnet doll.  Time to lay down the law.  Good night.