Giant City State Park

On Sunday we visited Giant City State Park that is south of Carbondale (a good 30 minutes from our house, but well worth the drive). This park is 4,000 acres and resides in the Shawnee National Forest.

This park is the best outdoor recreation in the area complete with camping, picnicking, hunting & fishing, hiking trails, rappelling, horseback riding, lodging & dining, playgrounds, climbing a water tower and visitor/educational center that is great for kids.

Well you can see by this picture that our first trip to GCSP wasn't really for recreation. Sheldon had a better idea in mind and that is their family style Sunday lunch. What you see here is us digging in to some fried chicken, green beans, cole slaw, corn, mashed potatoes with white gravy, dumplings and biscuits served up with butter and apple butter.

Hayes helped himself to some corn, but noticed that the biscuits just didn't quite add up to true southern biscuits. The apple butter helped a lot though. However, this is corn country and I can say that it was really good (they probably took the Paula Deen route and added some bacon fat.

After our lunch we explored the Lodge a bit.
This is the upstairs (sorry the image is a little blurry) where you can lounge in comfy leather chairs and sofas and play some checkers. In the downstairs lobby they have a full size (stuffed) bison.

We left the Lodge and took Hayes to a playground and then to the nature/visitor's center. The visitor's center is really cool. It shows the flora, fauna and creatures in the area. They have some stuffed owls, a deer and a beaver. One corner of the center is an educational area for kids where Hayes spent some time coloring and Sheldon helped him with a leaf rubbing. That is where the beaver also resides, but Hayes didn't really like him too much.

Great family day and we can't wait to bring some of you here for a visit. For more information visit, http://giantcitylodge.com/park/.