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Giant City Park & Lodge – Maybe the best Fall “eat & stay” deal in Southern Illinois!

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Affordable lodgings and good chicken at Giant City Lodge in Makanda!
Recently on an expedition to check out the fall colors in Southern Illinois, I used this site to search out lodging for a quiet Sunday night’s lodging. I randomly called several of the B&B’s listed on ThisIsFun for rate information. inside historic cabin at Giant City State ParkAfter about 8 calls, my results consisted of 7 answering machines and one restaurant that doubles as reservations for cabins. I was ready to camp. I sure wasn’t ready to pay $125 for a B&B or cabin and didn’t want to stay in a sterile, corporate motel. Camping at Giant City seemed to be the reasonable, budget plan!

Then I remembered that the lodge at Giant City State Park has a diverse range of cabin accommodations if you are inclined to not sleep in a tent or “camp”  in an RV among the rocks that define this wonderful state park. Double occupancy for the “Historic Cabins” starts as low as $69 from Sunday through Thursday and $10 more on Friday and Saturday. image Southern Illinois Giant City State Park Historic Cabins Fried ChickenThat gets you one of the smaller cabins near the lodge. Not only do these cabin sleep four with their double bed set up, but they have full bathrooms. There are other, larger cabins as well, but the focus here was on the “best” deal!

The smaller cabins dot slope on the left side of the lodge at Giant City Park. There are larger cabins, “Prairie” & “Bluff” with separate sleeping areas, scenic views, decks and fireplaces, that are also outstanding values. Read more »

First October Weekend Breakdown…

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A few fun things to do the first weekend in Southern Illinois

Fall is here but the fun continues “down South”

Mt. Vernon, IL – Heritage Festival, October 1 & 2 10 AM To 4PM
The Jefferson County Historica Societ invites all to attend a celebration of the regions past at the Historical Village. 1411 N. 27th St.
Crafters, exhibits, demostrations, entertment, food and for those needing some early Halloween spirit, a cemetary walk! Don’t worry, the Union Cemetery walk is at 1 PM on Saturday, there should be no ghosts haunting the event.

New Baden, IL – Lions Club Amazing Race
Registration 10:30 AM Event Start 11:30 AM
The Lions Club with the help of  New Baden will bring back the Amazing Race to support the Chakota Therapeutic Riding Center. The Amazing Race is formatted much like the famous one on TV. Teams of two to six people will compete in ten challenges to win a prize of $100. Event scheduled for 5 hours. Each team’s driver must be at least 18.

The Chakota Theraputic Center’s mission is to provide people with disabilities an opportunity for theraputic interaction with horses. Center is 100% funded by grants and donations.

Breese, IL – Homecoming Weekend
Football against Red Bud on Friday, Homecoming dance on Saturday.

Praire du Rocher – Fete at the Fort Brew Fest
Sample fine beers on the grounds of Historic Fort de Chartres! The 2nd annual Fete at the Fort Brew Fest will be held on Saturday, October 1st, 2011 from 11 am to 4 pm at Historic Fort de Chartres in Prairie du Rocher, IL. The first 1500 attendees will receive a commemorative Fort de Chartres sampling glass!  The participating breweries will have their own booth.

Weekend Reminder – Golconda Shrimp Festival – 9.17.11

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Shrimp Street Party Goconda!

What: Golconda Shrimp Festival
Where: Golconda, IL | Downtown and All Around
When: September 17, 2011 | From 10AM-10PM

Many people do not attribute much significance to the relationship between the state of Illinois and the Ohio River. The focus on Illinois waterways is stuck on the Mississippi River or Lake Michigan, depending on if you are from the State of Illinois or the City of Chicago. Read more »

Upcoming – Pepperfest in Cobden 9.3.2011

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Explore the Chile – Southern Illinois Style

The Jimenez family is the real secret ingredient behind Union County’s Southern Illinois Pepperfest. The family which grows a diverse selection pesticied-free peppers at their farm, Ranch Belle Vista, will be sharing some of the secrets to growing, cooking, canning, and otherwise turning the heat of chilis into delicious foods.

The Pepperfest runs from 11MA to 5PM at Rancho Bella Vista at 827 Vines Rd, Cobden, IL This is a family-friendly food and fun event. There will be jellies, jams, recipes, salsas, music, cooking classes, walking tours, and more. The Jimenez clan will also show you how to string up your peppers, (ristras), so you can preserve those in your garden!

Expectations are that this years attendance will be around 500!

Admission:
$5.00
Music Scheduled:
Carter and Connelley
Will Maring

PDF Flyer

Directions:

From Carbondale:
Follow Hwy 51 south, continue past Makanda for 6.5 miles, look for the blue “Tourist Activities” sign , TURN RIGHT immediately after (this is Vines Road); we are about ½ mile in on the right hand side (north).
From Anna:
From Rte. 146 TURN North onto Hwy 51, go 5.5 miles; find Vines Rd. Where you see an older vegetable stand (Schweitzer); TURN left onto Vines Road and go about ½ mile (we are on the north side

Getting it back together…

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Welcome to the 2011 revision of ThisIsFun.com. The site is being migrated to the WordPress platform to support active blogging on southern Illinois tourism. The old website was Joomla and although that is a great platform, it is not nearly as fun to use as is WordPress.

Most of the information has been migrated and the next process is to continue updating the information which was last added in 2010. A Google Calendar has been added and there is a form if you want to submit your event.

You will also notice an opportunity to support ThisIsFun.Com. Why support this site? If you are a tourism related business, chances are that this site may have referred business to your phone or website. This site is has been supporting tourism in southern Illinois since 1999! Supporting this site is pretty inexpensive, but offers big returns. Your banner can be here for as low as $10 a month!

There is another reason to focus some of your spare change in support of this site. This is one of a network of sites that will eventually stretch from Alton to Cairo with a side step into the Soulard district of St. Louis. Currently ExploreCollinsville.Com and ExlporeClintonCounty have been supporting communities and others are currently being developed.

You know where your visitors are coming from! Southern Illinois is the destination of choice of many in the St. Louis and Metro East. Any vendor that supports this site, will get corresponding feature ads on one of the other complete sites or featured blogs on events.

If you didn’t know, one of the best ways to improve your business site search engine optimization is with back links and blogs. You get both if you support ThisIsFun.com or any of the other websites in my network of hyper local blogs and community news.
Thank you,

John Wood
Webmaster & Editor
618-223-6007
ThisIsFun.com

http://ExploreCollinsville.com

http://ExploreClintonCounty.com

http://BluesCityReview.com

http://SalesProWebsites.com

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This Weekend – Balloon Fest – Centralia, IL

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Hot Air Balloons Light Up Foundation Park August 19-20, 2011
The best family fun this weekend in Southern Illinois is arguably Centralia’s annual hot air Balloon Fest. This annual event, held every August is a must attend family event.

hot air balloons light up Centralia's Foundatin Park

Hot air balloons light up Centralia's Foundation Park during 2009 Balloon Glow

Not only do children under 6 get in free, but a three-day pass for everyone else is $7 with daily admissions only &3.

This year’s Balloon Fest will have the two Balloon Glows that happen at dusk, food, crafts, music, games and contests. There are 40 hot air balloons scheduled to appear. Typically the hot air balloons at this show are a colorful mix of typical tear-drop shaped balloons to unusual characters.

The nice thing about this show is that you can get up and close to the hot air balloons, something that doesn’t happen often in Southern Illinois. Foundation Park’s lake enhances the evening balloon glows as well.