These are my Top five Hiking Books for 2024, which include learning about new areas to explore and national parks to visit. We traveled in the Midwest and discovered books that allowed us to connect with nature while exploring the area. Below are the 2024 Top 5 Hiking Books: Best East Day Hikes Acadia National Park by Dolores Kong and Dan Ring This book includes…
See more than a million twinkling lights at the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in St. Louis and best of all it is free.
Listen to Christmas music, as you check out the North Pole and drive under jumping deer at the Winter Wonderland in Tilles Park in Ladue. This St. Louis area holiday tradition began in 1987. Glimmering lights are fashioned into over 100 displays of festive characters and winter scenes in seventy-five acres of parkland. At the Entrance You can only enter the Christmas drive-through display from…
See the First Missouri State Capitol and where Lewis and Clark camped during their first expedition as you stroll around downtown St. Charles. This 2.5-mile walk comprises sidewalks, paved, and crushed limestone sections that are fairly level with only 39 feet of elevation gain. The hike goes through Frontier Park and the streetscape of downtown St. Charles, which includes the historic Missouri’s First State Capitol….
Visit the open-air Belleville Christkindlmarkt with food, entertainment, European crafts, and beverages this holiday season. Our Time at Belleville Christkindlmarkt The open-air market in Belleville, Il., is modeled after the Christmas Markets in Germany. It is located at the corner of Main and Illinois streets in downtown Belleville. We parked in a nearby lot by A and High Streets and then walked down High Street…
During the holiday season, the St. Louis Hills neighborhood along the 6500 block of Murdoch Avenue lights up with hundreds of strands of Christmas lights to become Candy Cane Lane. This is a neighborhood Christmas display, so it is a lot more personable than a high-dollar drive-through one at a theme park. However, they do take donations for charities. Families come together to make this…
A Star Wars firefight and skiers jumping over your car are just some of the amazing light displays at the East Peoria Festival of Lights. The Festival of Lights Electric Park comprises floats that begin in the Parade of Lights before Thanksgiving each year. Being floats allows them to be huge displays that you drive by. WHAT TO SEE AT THE EAST PEORIA FESTIVAL OF…
As a child, what I looked forward to the most at Christmas was the magic of the Plaza Lights in Kansas City. It is an over-90-year-old tradition that spans a 15-block area with Christmas lights over the entire Country Club Plaza. The lights come on in a special ceremony at each year’s Thanksgiving. You can walk or drive through the Plaza area since the lighting is spread…
Visit New Jersey’s highest point for mountain views and see the 220-foot New Jersey Veterans’ Memorial monument at High Point State Park. Entering the Park The 16,000-acre state park is just a few miles from Port Jervis, New York. From the high point, you can see Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, where the three states meet. To reach the monument, drive Scenic Drive to…
Hike around a pond, a wetland, and a prairie at Silver Creek Preserve near Mascoutah, Illinois, in the Metro East. Overview The trail is a 1.1-mile paved path through wetlands and prairie grass. This preserve has plenty of parking and includes restrooms and a picnic shelter. At the Start We walked along a paved trail, heading toward the loop section of the path. I allowed…
