PEORIA MAGAZINE June 2022

C O V E R S T O R Y

The antidote to what ails us: GET OUTSIDE

Julie Robinson’s passion – and her Local OPAL website – show the way

BY MIKE BAILEY PHOTOS BY RON JOHNSON

J ulie Robinson is on a one-woman quest to drive central Illinoisans outside. The retired schoolteacher also is on a crusade to put the lie to the oft heard contention that there’s “nothing to do” in these parts. To the contrary, her Local OPAL website, www.localopal .org, has identified more than 440 publicly accessible recreation areas – 94 in Peoria County alone, another 96 in Tazewell — that she has exhaustively mapped in an eight-county region around the city, with more to come. If there is a campground, biking and hiking trail, fishing hole, wildlife sanctuary, playground, dog park, canoeing/kayaking spot, sledding hill, wetland, forest, etc. anywhere in central Illinois, Robinson knows about it, can

Depending on the season, she can devote full-time hours to the website, which includes doing her due diligence by traveling to explore the various locations. As she says, “Local OPALing is now a verb in my house.” Gi ven the amount of work involved, without the slightest bit of compensation – “Oh, this is purely a labor of love” — Robinson is far too humble in her self-description. “I’m a great pointer-outer. ‘Go here, go there.’” she said. Robinson, 59, first began thinking about what would become her Local OPAL – the latter an acronym for Outdoor Playing And Learning – while teaching math and science over three decades in Peoria Public Schools, the last 20 at Richwoods High.

share the directions to get there, and can provide almost encyclopedic detail to ensure itsmaximumenjoyment, from its flora and fauna to the availability of restrooms to whether it’s stroller accessible. “I want everybody to realize what’s in our own backyard,” Robinson said. “You can do all this stuff without getting 20 miles from home and never having to fight traffic. In my opinion, we are missing the boat.”

42 JUNE 2022 PEORIA MAGAZINE