MAKANDA, Ill. - It's not unusual for folks in Paducah, Ky., to drive an hour into southern Illinois for fried chicken. At Giant City Lodge on a Sunday, chicken will be your only choice. And even if you happen to show up on another day of the week, you can still order the all-you-can-eat fried chicken dinner, with heaping sides of corn, mashed potatoes, and biscuits.
While the food is good, the setting is even better. What the lodge calls the dining room and the surrounding vacation cabins sit atop a hill in Giant City State Park, famous for its sandstone bluffs. The lodge is one of those glorious stone structures built in the 1930s by Civilian Conservation Corps workers. It boasts white-oak timber beams and hand-carved stairs and banisters. Unlike most park lodges that have been taken over by conglomerate concessionaires, this one remains family run.
Just beyond the park down a steep hill into the valley is the burg of Makanda, population 450 and just 8 miles south of Carbondale. You can spot it from the highway with its bright yellow water tower wearing a smiley face and bowtie. Makanda's tiny 1890s boardwalk, formerly a train depot, lives up to its reputation as a haven for hippie types. In the small selection of shops, there's enough incense and tie dye to supply another Woodstock. Makanda's annual Vulture Festival, which celebrates the arrival of flocks of vultures in the treetops, is held every October.
If you're heading back to Paducah in daylight, you can burn off some of that chicken and fixings bicycling the rail trail at Tunnel Hill State Trail in Vienna. On weekends you can rent a bike from Peddles & Paddles for a leisurely ride along the 45-mile path. Most visitors cycle 9 miles slightly up to the 543-foot tunnel, which, though you can see daylight at both ends, is black as night in the middle.
Just off Interstate 24, before you cross back over to Kentucky, you can visit Superman by following the signs to the giant Superman statue in Superman Square next to the Super Museum and souvenir shop. Why does a city of 6,000 merit so many superlatives? Because it's Metropolis.
Giant City Lodge, 618-457-4921, giantcitylodge.com. Dinners $9/$4.50. Lodge closed mid-December-Jan. 31. Makanda, Ill., information at giantcitylodge.com, 800-526-1500. Tunnel Hill State Trail, 618-658-2168, http://dnr.state.il.us/. Peddles & Paddles, 618-658-3641, peddlesandpaddlesinc.com, rentals $11-$22 in season. Metropolis, Ill., information at metropolischamber.com, 800-949-5740.
