Garden of the Gods FINALLY

We are still in the middle of nowhere in Southern Illinois and the

 car is running out of gas.  This is normally not an issue, but we are on back roads and most of the small towns that we pass don't have any gas stations, so we're starting to worry that we're going to make it anywhere before running out.  Wouldn't that be fun to talk about on this travel blog?  We probably would still be stuck in Southern Illinois if we had run out waiting for someone to come past this out of the way space. 

 It starts to rain as soon as we park  at Garden of the Gods.  We thought that there would be a ranger's station or some kind of area that would give us maps of the different routes that you can walk around this awesome place.  It seemed pretty tame when we first set out on the observation trail, I mean there were some rocks that looked like mushrooms...interesting, but it

 isn't until you get out a bit further on the trail that you come to the bluffs and the rolling landscape falling away from you as you stand on an outcropping of rock that feels both sturdy and incredibly fragile. 

 Mistee told us not to fall off the rocks because every year they get to hear the news stories about how more people have fallen off the rocks at the Garden of the Gods.  I remember those stories when we lived there and it made it this place somewhere that I didn't want to go see.  But you really can be as safe as you want here.  I can definitely see how people can fall off the rocks because you can step right off the trail and walk out to the edge.  The rocks have small crevices between them and these gaps look very easy to jump across; tempting, but not in the rain.  We really enjoyed seeing this place finally and it lived up to the hype.  We most likely would have spent more time here if the weather had been any better, but we can't complain when it is most likely snowing back home...

 

 We got to see the Devil's smokestack, what we hope was camel rock (but we were never really sure which one was it and this is going to be on the new Illinois state quarter), and the iron deposits, trees growing up through the rocks, and wrinkles in the rocks made for a landscape out of some sort of science fiction movie.