Our Labor Day weekend 2019 was a short trip to Starved Rock State Park in Oglesby, Illinois.
We wanted to stay at their lodges or camp ground but it was pretty much all weekends booked until December… No wonder it’s the #1 attraction in Illinois LOL
According to the radio, they just finished all the constructions and expecting to get pretty busy. We left a house around 10am but fortunately we could get a spot in overflow parking area.
It’s a really big park and having Orbit with us kinda limited our walking pace in crowded paths. Though, luckily 12lb dog is not so heavy to carry around in a difficult area 🙂
We went to French Canyon (0.4mi), Starved Rock (0.3mi), Pontiac Canyon, and Wildcat Canyon (1.0mi).
After we hit those the trails, we decided to come back to the lodge area for late lunch. I found that their restaurant called Veranda (outside patio, seasonal only) is Dog Friendly, so why not to check it out. We purposely aimed for a weird time to have “late lunch” or “early dinner” so that we can get a table 😉
They also have a Dog menu so as a treat to him, we’ve got him a grilled chicken and pumpkin peanut cookies ♥️
Grilled Chicken Burger 
BYOB Burger
Orbit seemed super exhausted since he hasn’t had usual 9 hours of daytime sleep + was pretty stimulated. So we decided to head out to the hotel in Ottawa about 20min from the park.
