Changing Course

Changing Course
Originally uploaded by davidzentz

Harley Dodson, 11, Reyna Ventura, 10, Austin Ventura, 11, and Dylan Brown, 9, cook s'mores while camping with their family along the Hennepin Canal just west of historic lock 21 near Wyanet on Labor Day weekend. The family, from Spring Valley, comes to the canal nearly every weekend throughout the summer to camp and go fishing. The 104-mile canal connecting the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, which is this year 100 years old, was made obsolete by the railways not long after its completion. After twenty years of neglect, the canal was turned into parkland in 1971. DAVID ZENTZ/JOURNAL STAR