Dixon Springs State Park in Golconda, Illinois April 16 – 23, 2025

Cindy, Bella and I left Seven Points Campground outside of Nashville, Tennessee on Wednesday, April 16th for a 3-hour drive to Dixon Springs State Park in Golconda, Illinois where we would “enjoy” a 7-night stay.

This stay was supposed to be at Fort Massac State Park in Metropolis, Illinois. But that campground sits on the banks of the Ohio River side of Illinois at the Kentucky state border and it had been flooded for a couple of weeks. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources did not expect it to recede until April 20th, at the earliest, so they had cancelled our reservations there. I wrote about that in this post and how Cindy scrambled and found us this spot, which is about 16 miles northeast of Fort Massac.

Dixon Springs State Park

Dixon Springs State Park is named after William Dixon, an early settler in this section of Southern Illinois. The 496-acres became a State Park in the late 1940’s. It is situated on a giant block of sandstone that was deposited 315 million years ago, dropping 500 feet along a fault line that extends northwesterly across Pope County. Visitors and hikers can find beautiful rock formations, as well as canyons, creeks and waterfalls. The surrounding woods and trails were once inhabited by Native Americans and the infamous Trail of Tears passed nearby.

Cedar Grove Campground

Cedar Grove Campground is located near the entrance to the state park. While we were glad to get a spot on such short notice, it’s not a place we would revisit in the future.

There are 38 campsites with 30-amp electrical hookups and a couple of them have 50-amp as well, though ours did not. There are no water hookups at each site, but there are community potable water spigots throughout the campground. We did not know about the spigots, so we had filled our fresh water tank before leaving Seven Points. It’s a good thing we did because, while there was a “community” (meaning shared when needed and not full-time) water spigot near our site, two other campers had commandeered it for their own RV’s. Fortunately they left a couple of days after our arrival and no one else decided they were so important that they should have full-time use of the spigot. So we were able to fill our fresh water tank again before leaving for our next stop.

The sites were right on top of each other. If I’m looking out our back window into someone else’s RV window, then it’s not a place I want to come back to. The site was so small there literally was not enough room to put up Cindy’s screen room, and what space there was…well it was unmoved grass and weeds. The site was VERY unlevel, front to back, as you can see how far up the front of our trailer is in the photos.

There were vault toilets, but we never ventured into any of those.

There was no host. Once, we saw a park employee drive through. That’s all they did. There was a reservation slip on our site when we arrived, so they must do at least that. But no site cleaning, no maintenance (while we were there) and we saw several sites where guests had left things like a water hose, a volleyball, and trash that were never picked up during our stay.

The campground is next to a sewage treatment plant run by the park. There’s a photo of it in the album. You have to drive by it going in and out of the campground. We’ve never seen that before. I couldn’t help but notice there was a canoe at one end of the treatment area. I’d hate to be the guy that has to put that canoe in the water filled with human waste and row to a point in that mess to do some kind of repair or cleaning of a filter.

There is a dump station…right next to the sewage treatment area.

But again, beggars can’t be choosers and we were glad just to be able to get a spot on short notice. I would be pointing out the above negatives even if we had originally planned to stay at this campground on our trip. Some of these places you just don’t know until you get there, then you decide if you’d like to come back or not. From what I’ve read, this used to be a nice place to camp.

The one good thing or things is that they had a number of trails to hike.

Hiking Oak Trail

After we got set up Wednesday afternoon we had an early dinner and then took Bella for a walk. Not far from our site was the beginning of the Oak Trail which ran in an easterly direction from the campground.

Some interesting trees with a kind of bark we hadn’t seen before. It almost looked like a bunch of small puzzle pieces. We crossed some fallen trees and a couple of small creeks, all of which Bella enjoyed jumping over. She’s too much of a diva to get her paws wet.

As we were hiking we noticed some signs off to our right and a large building that was pretty much hidden by trees. I ventured off to see what this was all about and pulled up short when I got close enough to see signage indicating this was a Department of Corrections facility. Signs warned not to come on the property and that if you did, you would be subject to search.

And being shot, probably.

This was right next to the campground; only about a half-mile away. Cindy wasn’t happy at all, but when we got back to Nomad we looked it up and found it was closed and not in use. Good thing, because all she had in mind was some prisoner escaping in the dead of night and making their way to OUR abode, like you see in the movies, lol.

Ghost Dance Canyon Trail

After breakfast Thursday morning we drove down the road into other parts of the park.

As I mentioned earlier, this used to be a nice place. But you can also see that there’s been little effort to clean up from a flood that may have happened recently, or many years ago. You’ll notice a picnic table jammed up against a drainage passageway in the photos of this album, along with broken branches, limbs, and other debris.

But there are also large, beautiful rock formations, bluffs, natural shelters and outcroppings. I jumped a creek and worked my way back behind and between some huge boulders and rock formations that I had fun exploring. Bella did not enjoy not being able to see me, but started wagging her tail and jumping around when I made my way back out into her sight.

Cindy just said, “Oh, it’s you.”

This area also had a swimming pool. It was covered and fenced, so it obviously wasn’t open. Maybe they open it later in the Spring or early Summer. The pool had a large, winding slide for kids (and adults, I suppose) to enjoy splashing into the water. There were also what looked like might have originally been natural springs that were now capped with signs warning “This water supply is not considered assuredly safe for human consumption” which I guess is about as clear as you can be.

On a closed road behind the swimming pool complex was the entrance to Ghost Dance Canyon Trail. This trail is about a mile roundtrip in length underneath the Highway 146 overpass (which was covered in graffiti) and through more woods, rock formations, boulders, outcroppings and a creek. Bella was NOT comfortable at all on this trail and may have sensed something. Cindy also felt that it was not a place she wanted to be. Maybe the ghosts were dancing while we were there, I don’t know.

That night we finished watching season 5 of “The West Wing” together. We only have two seasons to go and we’re going to miss this series when we’re done watching it.

Then I watched the season finale of “Daredevil: Born Again”and am looking forward to the next season. I’ve read that it has mostly already been filmed, but won’t air until next March. Afterward I watched the penultimate episode of the final series of “Bosch: Legacy” and will be sorry to see this series end. I’m hoping that maybe another studio will pick it up.

Speaking of Bosch, I finally started reading the novels beginning with the first book that Michael Connelly wrote about Harry Bosch in 1992. I wrote a review of it over on my writing and book review site. I have a couple of library books I need to read before my time to borrow them runs out, and then I’ll move on to the second novel. The plan is to read all of them in whatever amount of time it takes me.

Fort Massac State Park Flooding

Friday we drove down to Metropolis, IL but stopped first at Fort Massac State Park, just outside the City of Superman. We wanted to see how badly the flooding was affecting the park.

We stayed there in June of 2023 when we were visiting for that year’s Superman Celebration. From what we could see the RV spots seemed to be OK, but the roads leading into that area were blocked so we couldn’t be sure. What we could be sure of was the flooding around the RV spots. Lots and lots of water from the Ohio River had made its way throughout the park. Areas we had hiked through were covered in at least 2 feet of water, if not more in the lower parts.

The actual site of Fort Massac was high enough up to still be dry, even though it sits right at the edge of the Ohio River, but it was easy to see the river had overrun the banks and covered a great deal of the shoreline that is normally dry. You can see in the photo album and video how high the water level was the day we visited. The forecast was that it would not begin receding until two days from the day we were there.

Superman Day 2025

Friday, April 18th, was Superman Day around the world. Warner Bros. Studios, Discovery and DC Comics created Superman Day in honor of the Man of Steel’s debut in Action Comics #1 on April 18, 1938. The global celebration pays tribute to the Man of Tomorrow’s unbroken 87-year legacy and history in comic books, radio, TV and films.

I have a write-up about it on my personal blog.

Since Cindy and I would not be able to attend this year’s Superman Celebration in June (because we’ll be out in Wyoming at that time) we wanted to take this opportunity to visit Metropolis on Superman Day. And we made sure to wear our Superman t-shirts.

First we stopped at Fat Edd’s Roadhouse for lunch. During the Superman Celebration this is THE place to be for meals and some of the events even take place in their large dining room in the rear of the restaurant. During this visit the place was busy but not completely packed like it is during the Celebration.

If you look in the photo album you can see they have a superhero-based drink menu. They offer a drink called “Kryptonite” as well as drinks named for many of the DC Comic superheroes like Wonder Woman, Batman, Aquaman, and Flash, as well as supervillains like The Joker and Mr. Freeze. They’re cute, but we all know that in real life Superman can’t get drunk, or even tipsy because…well he’s Superman.

After lunch it was time to head to the Superman Statue in the center of Metropolis. Since it was Superman Day they had Superman and Supergirl cosplayers on hand to pose for photos at the foot of the statue. Then we strolled around the town which is much, MUCH quieter than it is during the Superman Celebration. We walked through the Superman Museum store and then down to the Lois Lane Statue, taking photos along the way.

It was a lot of fun for this Superman fan.

Driving back to Dixon Springs we stopped at The Chocolate Factory, just outside the gates of the state park, to pick up some candy and enjoy some ice cream for dessert before settling in for the night in Nomad.

The next four days were spent reading, writing and watching more of “The West Wing” on DVD together. I also watched the final episode of “Bosch: Legacy” which introduced the Renee Ballard character who will have her own spin-off series starring Maggie Q. Hopefully, even though Bosch has ended, the new series will have he and some of his cohorts drop in once in a while.

One of those days we hiked all of the Oak Trail, which then also joins up with the Pine Trail for a total distance of 3 miles by the time it circled back to the northern end of the park. We were tired little puppies after that extended stroll through various elevations and across trails filled with above-ground tree roots.

Even Bella looked at us as if to say, “You guys are crazy!”

I also filed our income tax return on Tuesday. I know, you’re thinking “Jeff, you filed late, after the April 15th deadline” and you’re right except that it wasn’t the deadline for ME!

Ok, me, as well as all residents of Florida and several other states who had an automatic extension until May 1, 2025.

But who knows, there may have been no reason to file anyway with all the IRS staffing cuts taking place. I mean, who is going to find out if you filed or not when they’re so severely understaffed? It’s a crazy country right now.

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