Eagle Watching...

It was a long weekend this weekend. Seth didn't have school on Friday for Teacher Inservice and Monday was a holiday. Aimee and I had been wanting to take the kids eagle watching in the local area and thought this would be as good a day as any. We met up with another family and drove up to Alton, Grafton, and Pere Marquette, IL. We drove to the lock and dam in Alton and then drove up the Great River Road near the bluffs. Seth and I learned a lot about the eagles, ie...the male eagles are the ones with the white heads and the females are all brown. As we drove up the road we saw about a handful of males sitting in the trees. They are gorgeous!!

As we were driving we saw the PIASA bird. This bird was painted on the side of the bluffs by the PIASA indians. (http://www.altongodfreyrotary.org/page9.htm) This will give you the story behind the bird creature...

After this we drove to Grafton for lunch. We ate at the Finn Inn. This place was sooooo cool. Each table (except ours because we had such a large group eating) is next to an aquarium full of fish. They had great food!!!

After lunch we drove to the ferry and took it across the river to Brussels. The kids thought this was the coolest thing ever. We drove the car onto the ferry and then drove it right off. I was actually impressed with it too. Aimee told me about the ferry, but I was thinking a bigger ferry where you have to park the car in the belly and go up top and wait to dock on the other side...Once we got there we drove to a Nature Preserve and walked around. The boys were throwing rocks to see who could hit the log in the water. On the way back to the car we heard what we thought were Canadian Geese, but when we looked up we saw a very rare bird in these parts. It was the Snow Pelican. Aimee had said that someone she knew saw them, but on our drive we didn't notice any Pelicans. We were in total amazement.

We took the ferry back to the main side and headed up to Pere Marquette to go to the museum. Once we got there we saw the sign that said CLOSED :( So we went up to the lodge at the state park and looked around. This is definitely a place to visit. They have log cabins you can rent, horseback riding, hiking, camping. It is beautiful. I took the opportunity to take a couple of pictures of the boys...

I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day weekend with their friends, family and loved ones!!!