Allerton

I took a ride today, and actually found Allerton Park this time. It turns out that they aparently don't want you to find the place anymore -- there aren't any signs leading you to it. I did manage to find the way I used to go, only to find out the bridge was closed. It would have been nice if they'd put signs up to show you how to get to the other entrance. So I drove around for a while, and found what used to be the lot for the trail that lead to the lost garden. The sign was gone, and as it turns out, so was the lost garden. When Cheryl and I visited it over 20 years ago, the trail led to a clearing in the woods, with a concrete pillar with an urn or some such thing on it, with 2 lines of trees leading down the hill to another clearing with a concrete pad and a trellis on one side, with a low wall on the other, with another row of trees continuing to 2 standing pillars (and more trees). The urn and the pillar are gone, the trellis is gone, and the map labels the area as the site of the former lost garden. Cheryl and I thought it was a really cool place -- now it's nothing.

So anyway, I (finally) get to the other entrance, and head into the park. I decide to head for the park's iconic feature, the Sun Singer. The Sun Singer is a copy of a statue of Apollo originally displayed in Sweeden. They have recently restored it, but to me it looks like an Andorian from Star Trek with skin cancer. It's like 12 feet tall, on an even taller pedestal, sitting on a concrete platform in the center of a big circle drive, in the middle of a big circular clearing.

It's an impressive enough statue, and add the fact that it's such a wierd thing to put out in the middle of nowhere...

Got a nice picture of Ginny, there on the circle drive...

As you drive back toward the main house, you pass the trail to "The Death of the Last Centaur" -- The centaur is in a relatively small clearing, with a double row of trees leading to the north and south, with 4 tall standing pillars at each end, and 2 other trails going to the east and west. This is a guy who really believed in art with a capital "A"...

This is the path leading to what I think was called "The Sunken Garden" (don't know for sure, because like everywhere else, the signs are missing)

Strangely enough, for a Sunken Garden, it comes off more as a personal stadium -- although I have no idea what you'd play in it. I've seen college kids playing frisbee, and we ran around in it when we were kids. I suppose back then they played Croquet or Bocce Balls...

Near the main house, is the Fu Dog Garden. To get there, you can go down the vines to the Buddha Pavilion...

I'd never actually looked closely at the pavillion until today -- and never realized it had a stair inside of it. Got a real nice view of...

The vines I just walked between...

and the Fu Dog Garden...

There are several of these, all alike, yet different.

Anyhoo -- by this time, it was 4:00pm and I needed to head home for a meeting at church. The last time I was here I was helping Sharon chaperone a bunch of Jr High schoolers. Before that it was before Sharon and I were married -- and before that over 20 years ago when Cheryl and I stopped by on our way back from Champaign (plus once when I was a teen ager). I didn't get a chance to visit the gardens (with the little mermaid statue) or the Mansion and the reflecting pond. And somewhere out there (in yet another small clearing), was a statue of a wild ape carrying a woman (which doesn't show up on the park maps they have out instead of actual signs). So I head out the way I came in, and fortunately, the Monticello chamber of commerce, and IDOT have placed SIGNS showing how to get to Monticello and the interstate. So I follow the signs, and end up coming out on the road I drove down the week before, and I could have found the park easily on that trip.

If they'd only put up a few damn signs...