Time for a break

Summer vacation for the employed (salary paid or workaholic) has come to consist of Labor Day weekend. In the great tradition of first week of school essays I would like to present…

What I did on my summer vacation.
By Perdita Sanitas

This summer I went to Starved Rock with my family. We did not stay at the grisly Starved Rock lodge but at the better Grand Bear Lodge. The Grand Bear Lodge is located near by and has an indoor water park and mini golf. It does not have so much nature that there can’t be any fun. We rented a townhouse and had to walk from there to the water park, but it was okay because the water park was worth it. We enjoyed the water park the most. My mother went down the water slide.
. We played Yahtzee and I won even though it was my mothers birthday. It was not all fun. My sister and I had to cook while we were on vacation.
We also went to Starved Rock State Park to hike. There were lots of stairs to walk up to the butte. I learned that it got it’s name because of the Native Americans that died there.

In the 1760s, Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa tribe (not the car), was slain by an Illiniwek while attending a tribal council in southern Illinois. During one of the battles that subsequently occurred to revenge his dieing, a band of Illiniwek, under attack by a band of Potawatomi (allies of the Ottawa), sought refuge atop a 125-foot sandstone butte (the place with all the stairs). The Ottawa and Potawatomi surrounded the bluff and held their ground. There was no way to get water up from the river far below and there was not as many trees up on top as there are now so there were no animals to hunt. Eventually the hapless Illiniwek died of starvation. We had a picnic on top of the rock. I don’t know why the Illiniwek didn’t just pack some food when they went up. We would have been prepared if they had come back.
I had fun this summer. But it was too short.