A few days ago I drove through the very cool town of Olney Illinois to check out their famous WHITE SQUIRRELS!
We dropped in and went first to the Chamber of Commerce, located at 216 East Main Street (they have recently moved and several web sites have to old address).
The area takes a lot of pride in its unique critter population, and they sell postcards, stickers patches, shirts, hats, etc. celebrating their squirrels. Yes, I made several purchases!
The very cool lady running the Chamber gave me a map and made suggestions about places to go to see the squirrels.
We took her advice and we were able to see several! In fact, by the lake I think we could have watched them all day. I was really happy about this, because, to be honest, I had my doubts. I thought that maybe one or two squirrels were around town, and I assumed the odds of seeing one were exceptionally low. Again, I was wrong!
They are albino, and they have those beautiful pink eyes. In some ways they reminded me of the classic lab rat. I have a buddy that used to have some of those rats as pets, and I swear they were some very sweet, affectionate pets that get a bad reputation. These squirrels looked like them but with big bushy tails.
They seemed to be very used to people taking photos of them. One climbed a tree and set on a branch as I photographed him, and I swear he was posing, the little ham. I probably took a hundred photos.
I know I have been singing the praises of southern Illinois a lot lately, and this town is another great one. We walked through their classic old feeling main street area, and we stopped at a beautiful Coffee shop Roll With It Bakery. This was the perfect stop for a nice light lunch, candy, and coffee. We wrote some notes to our friends on the back of the white squirrel postcards I bought at the Chamber of Commerce as we enjoyed coffee in their roomy café.We really enjoyed our day in this friendly, attractive town. If you are within a day trip drive to here, you should check it out!
2 comments:
Brevard, NC is also known for its white Squirrels. Their squirrels are actually have black eyes, so they are a little different. They have a festival every year celebrating the squirrels.
Oh that is so cool! Brevard just got added to my bucket list!
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