I was back on a little vacation to Rockford, just up the River, last week.  It was nice to "go home" for a good visit.
 
We went to White Pines Deer Park....drove around and had breakfast at the lodge there.
 
As for Lowell Park......my dad grew up in Polo, so he too, swam there when Ron would have been a lifeguard!    The Rockford Ski Broncs water ski club did a ski show at Lowell Park around 1975.
Rock River.....still a great river.....still very swimable.....just happened to be flooded last week, so we missed the ski show....rats!
 
Lowell is the park where my dad first learned to water ski on a saucer, with a 4 foot step ladder on it.  It became the "family trick" for me, then my son, and now my 2 yr old grandson is on the saucer with his dad now.  I remember many family outings at Lowell when I was very young......water skiing, good food....good times.....  I even remember seeing my first (maybe only) full-immersion dunking-Baptisms in the river at Lowell.......seemed so "strange" then, for a boy raised in an EUB church!!  lol....
 
As for Prince Castle....yum.  Long gone now......but they had the BEST grape sherbet.  LOL!  I can't find aywhere to get grape sherbet....WAH!  
 
Thanks for sharing!!
 
YFIC,
 
RAndy
 
PS.....as I "went home" last week....I found myself imagining how it will be sometime (soon) to finally get to really GO HOME.......what a time THAT will be!!