Neutral's Guide to Fall: Top 5 Places to Go
Champaign-Urbana is an amazing place to be in the fall. Read this guide to learn about the top 5 places to visit to make your fall the falliest fall.Fall is my favorite season and I know I'm not alone in this. If you ask people to say why they like fall, they'll likely mention some of the many holidays (e.g. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Diwali, Sukkot, Mehregan, Samhain, etc.) or distinguishing natural phenomena like the leaves changing color or the onset of cooler weather. For me, it's a little different. Don't get me wrong, I do love those things, but there's something more abstract about fall that I like: its inconsistency. Fall is a season of transience. Each day differs from another. They differ in temperature, degree of precipitation, cloud cover, and windiness and these differences can make the days more memorable. Plus sweaters. Who doesn't like wearing sweaters?We're now a month into fall, with two more months to go, so what better time to offer you guys a list of places to make the best of this most glorious season. We're a bike shop, so we have an obvious bias in terms of what we are looking for, but all of these places are suited to walking as well. I will say that as long as you're wearing the right clothes *cough, cough* shop at Neutral *cough, cough*, you won't be too cold when biking and the brisk air on your face can be really refreshing, so give it a shot! Our methodology for the selection of these places is based around the following three criteria:
The place is in reasonable biking distance of CU residents.
The place is either a good place to bike to or a good place to bike at.
The place is particularly suited to helping you to experience fall, based around our cultural understanding of what marks this season.
As much as I'm sure you'd like me to get on with it, I'd feel I should add that this is not our first Guide to Fall.
In 2014, I wrote what would become the first of our guides to the seasons.
As the format for our Guides to
and
changed somewhat and as we thought we could improve on our first version, we decided to offer to you,
o popule champaignurbanane
, a new and improved redux version.
1. Allerton
If the natural beauty of fall is your thing, then
is the place to go. Nowhere else in the area do you have better access to Illinois' flora and fauna, offering you the chance to see how different forms of life adjust to the changing weather. If you're into leaves, this is a great place to see leaves. If you have the time and the inclination, it's worth going a few weeks in a row. By doing this, you'll be able to see fall's progression as winter slowly approaches.
If you've never heard of it before, Allerton is a park owned by the University of Illinois and located in neighboring Piatt County. Built by the scion of a wealthy Chicago family, Allerton comprises some 1500 acres of Illinois forest and farmland hugging the banks of the Sangamon river. With its
well-marked, well-maintained trails
, Allerton is an ideal place to go hiking (my suggestions are the blue and red trails). Built as a rural retreat, Allerton complements this natural beauty with various planned gardens and a stately home. There's no better place to wander around and appreciate the effective blending of architecture and natural beauty.
Allerton's distance from CU –
– is both its advantage and its disadvantage. Were it not so far from CU, it would without question lack the quietness and placidity that makes it such a great getaway. This distance, though, can make it a difficult trip for many carless residents. As long as you have a free day and an available bike
(
You can always rent from Neutral!
)
, it shouldn't be too difficult to get to, provided you have some experience with longer biking excursions. As I mentioned in
, if you do choose to bike there, stay off the main roads. Use the smaller county roads. Not only will you have less traffic to deal with, you'll also be able to get away from the din of city life and surround yourself with rural Illinois in all its autumnal splendor.