Touching Grass in Comlara Park - Hudson, IL

For the past few days, we’ve been camping in our Airstream, Chisoku, at Comlara Park, north of Bloomington, IL. It is a beautiful park and campground that sits on Evergreen Lake and Jone’s Pond. Our site was by the pond. When we arrived on Tuesday, the park seemed somewhat empty. However, that was mainly due to the large number of nicely situated campsites (144). So, even though we weren’t the only campers, it felt like we almost had the place to ourselves. Nevertheless, by Thursday, the park was filling up! And it’s clear that it's a popular getaway for people in the Bloomington-Normal area, just 30 minutes away.

We loved how green everything is and all the trails that take you by lovely views of the water. It is also very popular for fishing. The manmade Evergreen Lake was built in 1970 and covers 925 acres. It has a 10-horsepower-maximum limit on motorboats, and the lake is full of bass, crappie, walleye, bluegill, and catfish. So, it stays relatively quiet, but we saw lots of people out fishing throughout the week. In fact, one morning, I walked Lizzie by one of the main boat ramps and saw about 30 trucks with boat trailers parked there. People were already out fishing, and it was the middle of the week!

One drawback to the park is that we didn’t have the greatest cell phone service there. Craig pulled out his hair for a while, trying to set up our mobile modem. However, we use Starlink as a backup, and that worked well enough for him to do his job throughout the week. (For the several days prior to this, we simply used our phones’ hotspots, but we needed a real connection to do actual work.) Craig did finally get the modem connected, but we relied on Starlink instead because it was stronger in this particular location.

While Craig was working, I used some of the time to develop something new for my Instructional Design portfolio. But I also spent quite a bit of time hiking with the dogs. Lizzie and Dottie are used to having a dog door and going outside whenever they want. So, I wanted to get them out as much as I could. We checked out the very popular John English Memorial Trail, as well as various other trails that interconnect throughout the park. They all take you along the water at some point. When Craig could get away from his computer, he joined us, and we really enjoyed the scenery and amazing weather we had for most of our stay. On one hand, his job is super important right now, since he is the only bread-winner. But on the other hand, it’s nice to get out and “touch grass,” as they say. And this area sure has some amazing soft, lush, and super-green grass! See our pictures below.

We have some more house-shopping planned for the weekend. We'll let you know how it goes!