Over the weekend, my girlfriend and I decided to drive a couple of hours over to Rockford, Il and explore (she mainly wanted to do some thrifting…so we just made a thing out of it). I won’t go too much into detail, but overall, there is A LOT to do and explore – here are a couple of the things we thought was pretty fun.
Anderson Japanese Gardens
The Anderson Japanese Gardens is a great non-profit Japanese inspired garden that really tries to grab the essence of what it might be like walking around a garden in Japan. Walking around the couple of lakes they have was very soothing and looking at all the koi fish, ducks, turtles was very healing.
Nicholas Conservatory & Gardens
We didn’t get an opportunity to visit the the conservatory during the day, but it was VERY cool that they still kept the area open for people to walk around the area, even after closing hours (the actual conservatory was closed…but the gardens and walking areas around were still open.
Although small, it was full of interesting things. For starters, there were a couple of wild swans hanging out in the pond – something we don’t get to see often (other than in a zoo). Ducks were enjoying the sprinklers, and the rose garden ahead smelled great!
It was a short walk, but it was very nice being able to sit on some of the benches and enjoy the conservatory gardens and wildlife.
Volcano Falls Adventure Park
Close to our hotel was this little gem. We needed something to do at night so we headed over to Volcano Falls to play some mini golf. It wasn’t too packed, considering the park was closing in an hour and a half.
The first thing we did was drive the go-karts of course!
I hadn’t done this in years, so this was a blast! We were also the only go-kart on the track, which was pretty cool.
Next, we played some mini golf, 18 holes. Pretty sure I lost…but it was still fun!
