I & M Canal Trail - Ottawa to Marseilles

On November 9, 2013, coolkayaker1 and I hiked seven miles of the I & M Canal Trail. We met at The Middle East Conflicts Wall Memorial in Marseilles, IL at 10:00 am. Then we shuttled with one vehicle to the park just west of the Fox River Aqueduct in Ottawa. We hiked from Ottawa back to Marseilles. The mile posts on the trail all have little tidbits of information so any hike on the trail is informative.

The weather was spectacular! We had to take off layers of clothes and the sun felt wonderful. I think we discovered another of the unlisted campsites along the I & M Canal Trail. Right at Long Creek on the west edge of Marseilles it seems IL DNR has set up a campsite and planted trees and grass.

ck1 has a GPS unit and it showed that while we were actually walking, we were going at better than 3MPH. Even with stopping and filming and exploring, we finished the hike at about 1:45 p.m.

After we finished our hike we drove back to Ottawa to get the other vehicle. We stopped for lunch at a place in Ottawa called the Corner 230. What a great surprise! The restaurant has a nice selection of beers and giant, fresh, tasty cheeseburgers. The staff was cheerful and the whole place had a good, easy feeling about it.

I had planned on doing an overnight at Illini State Park, but I decided to head home after driving around the park a bit and seeing all the Winnebago type campers already there.

Here is the video of the hike.
Enjoy!