I am writing here to confirm that I am still living.
And I am glad to have experienced one of the few frontiers of this state that I hadn't before. Lemmetellyaz all about my trip.
Monday: I pick up Ashwin in Woodridge around 1:30. Then we drive south toward Macy's. I took the new I-355 extension south all the way to I-80, and lemmetellyaz it was smooth sailing the whole time. It wasn't being used all that much, actually. We stopped in Rantoul for gas and for Arby's. Yay, roast beef sandwiches from Arby's. Makes my mouth water and my stomach cringe.
We got to Macy's around 6 I think. His parents are so nice, especially his mom.
Tuesday: Pack up and gtfo. We left in the late morning and drove south. We ate lunch at the Steak n' Shake in Mt. Vernon. We continued to Sparta where we took pictures in front of the sign that says "Welcome to Sparta" on the east side of town. After that we went to Chester and saw the statue Popeye. Also, I got gas. We passed by a lumber store with a sign that read "free wood" next to a pile of wood scraps. We took some and used it for our campfire that night.
Some of the most beautiful turf we saw was in southwestern Illinois along Illinois Route 151 and Route 3. That area of Randolph County is NICE (gmts).
We got food at Tom's in Murphysboro and the gas station canopy thing had "Our food gives you gas" on it. Har dee har har. We camped at Giant City State Park, which was miserable. Camping can be fun, but I feared for my life in a small way. This was because of harmless little cicadas.

Cicadas -> noise -> inability to sleep -> no sleep -> inability to drive alert -> crash -> injury or death

I should have figured out that I could have let Macy do the driving if I was unable to. Meh.

Wednesday: I probably ended up with 3 to 4 hours of sleep, tops. I woke up probably 10 - 15 times during the night because of the noise. The campsite was NICE though, outside of the damn cicadas. I was surprised to be decently alert despite them. IMSA had taught me to stockpile on sleep when I could (i.e. get more than I need to when I can so I can afford to get less sleep on worse days). We left Giant City to head south toward Anna and Jonesboro. We drove across the bridge spanning the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The road to that bridge was surrounded by flooded farm fields that were completely underwater. We were appreciative of the road having been built about 10 feet higher in elevation than the surrounding land. It was like driving on a causeway. We drove south to Cairo just to say we've been to the southern tip of Illinois, but we were disappointed to see that Cairo is a horrendous dump of a town. It's dilapidated and trashy now; I don't know what happened. After that was Metropolis, where we saw the Superman statue. (In case you are wondering, the name "Metropolis" came before the comics, so the people there said "Hey, we're the only city in the USA named Metropolis!" And THEN they made the statue). I drove across the border into Kentucky and got gas in Paducah. And we ate at Steak n' Shake AGAIN...and Macy got a banana shake AGAIN...
We went swimming at Lake Glendale Recreation Area in the Shawnee National Forest for a few hours. There were these 15-ish year old girls there calling each other sluts and swearing a lot. I liked how we could venture out to where we couldn't stand in the water and actually swim.
Finally, we drove to Cave-in-Rock State Park. About 5 miles away, at the southwest corner of IL1 and IL146, I dropped my cell phone on the gravel and lost it. I started freaking out looking for it about 45 mins. later. I went back to look for it. That street corner was the last place I was going to look before I planned on giving up. I drove up to the gravel patch, and looked out the window. Even though no one else was in the car, I bleated out, "OHHH MY GOD." I was totally amazed that I found it.

Thursday: Ashwin woke up late this day, so it took a while for us to get moving. But when we did, we went to the cave after which Cave-in-Rock State Park is named. It was cool, but there was too much graffiti. We climbed around in there for a good hour or so. We found sandstone-in-the-making, broke the layers apart and skipped the rocks on the Ohio River. The cave opening faces the river itself.
Then we drove to the Garden of the Gods, which was easily the most amazing part of the trip. Look at the pictures on facebook. Famazing. Big cliffs, rock formations, lots of climbing around, and other stuff.
Then we ate at NOT-STEAK-N-SHAKE...and by that I mean "Sonic." You know, one of thems drive-in places that you see commercials for but never see. They don't have them in northern Illinois, but they sure do in southern Illinois. The one we went to was in Harrisburg. We drove to Old Shawneetown, a sort-of-ghost-town on the Ohio River. That was kind of a letdown, because it just looked like a relatively crappy small town. There was a town called Equality, and there was an old phone booth there; I took a picture of it. We went to Olney, a town in southeastern Illinois which is proud to be the home of white squirrels. We parked the car in the park that people tell me is the place to find them. So I got out of the car and looked around, and I was lucky enough to find one within a minute or so. It was probably 200 feet away or so, running up a tree. So the three of us walked toward the tree to find it. I saw it on a branch which pointed directly away from the direction we were coming from. But I found it, just sitting on that branch. He was still just sitting there as I took 2 pictures of it, one or both of which are on facebook.
Then we drove straight to Macy's to spend the last night. I got gas in Albion, and they sold individual bottles of Jones sodas there for only $1.19. I'll have to remember that!
Friday: Drove home. Nothing special. I-57 to Kankakee, IL102 to Wilmington, I-55 to Plainfield. Woohoo. Got gas in Bourbonnais. Woohoo.

My sign collection has exploded because of this trip. I'll never have to go south of I-64 for anything ever again, except for three little spots (Monroe County, Franklin/Williamson Counties, and White County). But my original collection of just the highway shields is 91% complete. I only need Illinois Routes 35, 73, 98, 135, 155, 156, 164, 138, 109, 255, 267, 336, and 394; and Interstates 172, 180, 280, and 474.

I actually have two different collections. One is of the different numbers (a sign for Route 1, a sign for Route 2, etc.). The other collection is of pictures for my website--this consists of the signs you see at intersections (i.e. Route 127 <- Route 149 ->). You can look at the website to see how far I've come with those.

As for now, I'm just chillin' at home. We're going on vacation next week, so that means I have a week now between trips. And after that, it's less than 2 weeks til college. I don't fucking want to go to college. I like not doing bullshit work. I like doing the kind of work I like to do.

But I know that you don't just live life to smell the flowers. You have to PLANT SOME YOURSELF!!