Matthiessen State Park

Weekend adventure to Matthiessen State Park and camping out in the camper!

Somehow, after growing up in Illinois neither my husband nor myself could recall having ever checked out this area of beautiful waterfalls and natural beauty. Starved Rock seems to be a bit more well known, but we ventured over to Matthiessen State Park where we heard the best waterfalls were.

I can't say for sure that one is better than the other - but this was a beautiful park! The whole family of four (me, hubby, 7yo, 3yo) and our black lab took on the "lower dells" hike and also had a chance the check out "strawberry rock."

The lower dells trail was gorgeous and the waterfall at the end was worth the wet shoes it took to get there. Our 7yo was able to navigate the trail on her own, with little hand holding. The 4yo on the other hand required a bit of carrying.

We weren't quite done when we finished the loop, so we decided to check out "strawberry rock." We didn't do the full loop, but we got to the rock and then decided that it was not only not very exciting but we weren't willing to take on that whole trail. It was a little less maintained and was muddy/slick in some spots, so we called it quits. In hindsight I would have been happy to have stopped before we started that one.

The hike we did was a pretty obvious loop with the beginning and end well marked, I didn't feel like we needed any further markings to keep us on track, so that was nice. It was also quite busy, so I felt confident that if we were to be lost/confused at all, there would be someone to ask at any moment. While there were a few times we felt a bit crowded (getting pictures at the final waterfall) I didn't feel like it took away from the natural beauty.

There are only bathrooms at the top of the trail by the parking, and by bathrooms - I mean port-a-pottys. Also, by the time we were done with our hike - they were out of TP, so definitely plan accordingly. Parking was also busy with many resorting to parking along the side of the road. We lucked out and got a good spot, and we were able to enjoy a picnic lunch at one of the tables there.

We reserved a campsite at Starved Rock Family Campground. The location was nice as it was close to both state parks, had a big play area and pool for the kids. The campsite itself was smaller than probably any other site that I have stayed at. I felt that when I was on the "back side" of the camper I was invading our neighbor's space and there was no room for the kids to play. We booked "last minute" so we got a water and electric (no sewage) site. I don't know if the other sites were much bigger, but some friends were staying at a different site and didn't seem to have the same complaints. The pool was a nice feature, however it was too cold to use. No adults would touch it and the kids weren't in for more than ten minutes - so based on the time of year, that may be worth considering. The playground and toy axe throwing were a big hit which mostly made up for the size of the sites themselves. There was a short line of campers leaving the campground Sunday morning and waiting for the dump station, but it moved fairly smoothly without much stress.

Between the campground and the state park we drove through a little town called Utica. It was cute, but appeared to be more well suited for adults only or a family who wanted to have a nice meal, but we had already eaten. We were able to find an ice cream shop on the edge of town, across from what looked like some sort of re-enactment/fair. Downtown had a nice area full of restaurants with seasonal outdoor seating, but no shops or none that were open. There was also a historic blacksmith which we were able to walk through and check out some of the farm equipment etc. The man running the blacksmith did a little demonstration for the girls on using a manual corn shucker. TLDR - Utica looked like it had more to offer than it did.