To be completely honest, when I first arrived at the University of Illinois I found it a bit dull. As the fall went on, the colder months accentuated the terrain’s flatness and dreariness. The area resembled my hometown (LaGrange, Illinois), but with fewer trees and places to go. Of course I had reasons for choosing this place: it has excellent academics and some of my best friends in the whole world, but nevertheless the town disappointed me. Sometimes back home I would get this same restless feeling before school started or during winter break. In this time I developed a valuable way to combat this feeling. I would go outside and with my bike ride in any direction I was not familiar with. On my bike I would explore the places I regularly did not go. I rode through parts of town I usually passed by on busy streets—the back roads and the scenic routes. Without fail, this always gave me a refreshing new perspective of where I lived and restored some wonder in a place I felt so familiar with. I decided I would get up and translate what worked so well at home to my University of Illinois experience. Perhaps all I needed to do was explore Champaign and Urbana the same way I explored my hometown and then I would grow as fond of here as I am of there.
So that is what I did. I hopped on my bike and rode it southward. I went past the ARC, past the football field, past assembly hall, until I reached expansive fields as far as the eye could see. Blasting Billy Joel on my iPhone, I went past County Market, past the engineering quad to downtown Champaign, a place that I never had an excuse to go. I rode it down the cobblestone roads of historic, residential Urbana, being sure to stop at my friend Matt’s rustic bungalow. For instance, instead waiting at PAR’s strategically positioned bus stop I would ride my bike to a destination. I rode my bike to shopping centers, cafes, and boutiques. Needless to say, the area was slowly growing on me. Once winter’s veil began to lift, I found I was even starting to enjoy the place. I found many of the area’s particulars charming, but most charming was Boneyard Creek.
Allow me to start from the beginning of my relationship with the creek. One day, as I ventured into the unknown, I got distracted. One of University of Illinois’s notorious squirrels caught my eye, scurrying to and fro, gathering nuts, seeds, and perhaps even pinecones to undoubtedly burrow. My four-legged friend captivated me long enough to allow my bike to veer off course. As my luck would have it my front wheel came into contact with the curb. SMASH! I was laid out on the ground my front wheel making its way down a slope. The wheel disappeared from my vision and I heard a splash. Dazed, I got up to see what could have happened to the wheel, it was at the bottom of about a foot of clear water. My squirrel friend watched as I rolled up my sleeve and fished the wheel out of the frigid liquid. This was my first memory of what I would soon learn was a creek named Boneyard.
Boneyard creek is a constant between Champaign and Urbana; it is a rope that ties the two communities together. On my rides I have spotted signs of it miles north by the highways and east towards downtown Urbana. In my experience, most places that my college life takes me the creek is not too far away. Throughout my two years here at the university I have absorbed more and more knowledge about the campus’s most famous body of water.
Even in the most unlikely places I will hear something new. This past semester I took the class Severe and Hazardous weather, where we learned about extreme weather in parts all around the world. To keep the class interesting, our professor constantly tried to relate weather events to our front doors. We spoke about lightning storms from the night before night before or memorable blizzards from years past. My interest was always piqued when I heard my professor talking about something that I could easily relate to. That is why I remember clearly the lecture my professor gave on floods. After intense rainstorms, he explained, around Green and Fourth Street would regularly flood. The fact that one of the busiest parts of town was flooding so often really blew my mind. Heck, I live only two or three blocks from there, would I be in danger of getting flooded? Luckily, I did not suffer some sort of panic attack before my teacher told us the end of the little yarn he was spinning. After some time, the professor explained, the town had enough, and they modified Boneyard creek to create a solution for this problem. The township altered the creek to more effectively collect water and prevent the floods.
On my adventures, I have observed a lot of construction to back my professor’s findings. Whole roads have been closed while giant bulldozers and plows dig a lake and surrounding path. Apparently, Boneyard creek is a real thing of interest to the local government; surely these lengthy and immense construction projects they put on cost a lot of money. The changes to the creek not only seem to be for functional purposes (flood control), but also more aesthetic ones. The architects behind the project did not ignore its appearance. The path carved out around the lake positively impacts the look of the area around it. The spot the creek empties into will certainly not be a pain to see.
This highlights an important aspect of the creek, how it looks. The university definitely uses this to its advantage when recruiting students. The creek’s beauty is inescapable at any point on the engineering quad. Boneyard really adds to and beautifies the area in ways that are hard to describe. It brings a sense of nature to its surroundings that would be difficult to achieve otherwise. That is one of the things that draw me to this creek; it’s a beautiful landmark in a place that is largely devoid of any other. In Champaign there are no hills, mountains, or beaches, all we have is the creek.
I am interested in finding out how the university and community views and utilizes the creek and other ‘green spaces’ in the vicinity. It seems that people value both the majesty and the functionality the creek. Does the community make a conscious effort to reap its benefits or do the advantages of the creek come out of convenience. There is so much history and mystery around the creek that I would love to uncover. If I ever get the chance, I would like to find the squirrel that distracted me that one fateful day. If I did, I would shake his little claw and thank him for helping me discover one of the most redeeming features of the region. I am intrigued to further investigate the secrets of Boneyard Creek.
