PEORIA MAGAZINE June 2022

National Wildlife Refuge, an 11,100 acre plus wetland in Fulton County. She won’t choose a favorite – “Who’s your favorite child?” she asks to make the point – though she betrays a certain fondness for Sand Ridge State Forest in Mason County, near Manito, at 7,200 acres the largest state forest in Illinois. It is a remnant of the Kankakee Torrent that carved the Illinois River valley millennia ago. Cactus grows in the sand deposits left behind. Yes, in central Illinois. The Fon du Lac Park District’s Spring Creek Preserve in East Peoria gets a mention as a relatively recent and impressive addition to the lineup, as do Mason County’s Revis Spring Hill Prairie and Jacob Wolf Memorial Fish Hatchery, Havana’s Bellrose Island – formerly the “Isle of Cuba” because of its shape— the JimEdgar Panther Creek State Fish and Wildlife Area in Cass County, the Coal and Mine Memorial Park in Toluca, all with utterly unique stories to tell, some of them creative solutions to an industrial past, like the ski hills built out of mine tailings that dot the landscape. Meanwhile, Robinson loves to paddle the Mackinaw River. Google Analytics tells her that the website gets about 800 visits a month, on average, rising with the temperatures – “you could almost track

the weather by it” — and blowing past 1,000 clicks during the summer months. With the site still in its infancy, there’s every reason to believe the potential for growth is significant. Meanwhile, she can hatch her ideas from home, on 17 acres just outside the Bartonville/Mapleton area. True to their calling, she and her husband, Tom, have planted nearly 7,000 trees on the property. That little forest inspires her, too. Initial ly, Robinson intended to concentrate on just the Illinois River valley, but the more she did, the more she wanted to do. She just finished McLean County. Stark County is up next. “I feel like it’s a jigsaw puzzle,” she said. Robinson wishes there were more places to rent bicycles and canoes and kayaks. She’d love to create a system modeled on the national park passport, where you can check off each place you’ve visited. “The whole goal is not just to get people outside, but to connect them with each other,” Robinson said. Beyond that, as the years go by, she’d like to see changes in the Peoria area’s self-perception. “We should be a mecca…We have it all,” said Robinson. Ideally, local attitudes would evolve to the point that central Illinoisans will someday say, “Well, why

wouldn’t you vacation here?” Moreover, the natives would no longer “look at their hometowns and apologize for whatever it is they think they need to apologize for.” Her hopes were reaffirmed during a recent outing at Forest Park Nature Center in Peoria Heights, where Robinson came across dozens of children on the trails, some on a school field trip, others with their parents. “It makes my heart happy to see all these people here,” said Robinson, who seems incapable of meeting a stranger when she’s in her element. She shared a quote from author Willa Cather with anybody who would listen: “Anybody can love the mountains, but it takes a soul to love the prairie.” “My husband says, ‘There’s only 24 hours in a day. You do realize that.’” Nonetheless, she subscribes to the view that “the greatest use of a life is to spend it for something that will outlast you. “Great people, beautiful places, we have all of that,” she says. “It’s a great place to call home.”

Mike Bailey is editor in chief of Peoria Magazine

44 JUNE 2022 PEORIA MAGAZINE