Looking for something fun to do with your family this weekend? Coral Woods Conservation Area in Marengo, Illinois is hosting its annual Festival of the Sugar Maples March 12-13, 2016. Our family has gone to this event several times, and this week I chaperoned my son’s school field trip to Coral Woods.
We enjoyed learning how sugar maples are tapped for their sap, seeing how the tap is collected, and watching the sap boil down in the evaporator house.
This is a free event, and tours leave every 15 minutes on the weekends from 10am-3pm. The best part? At the end of the tour, everyone gets to taste warm maple syrup made right in Coral Woods!
I can honestly tell you that when your little cup of Coral Woods-made warm maple syrup hits your tongue — well, there are few things more delicious in this world. We always buy real maple syrup because we love the flavor, but there’s just something magical about tasting syrup harvested and made locally.
Did you know it takes 40 gallons of maple sap to make one gallon of maple syrup? The Festival of the Sugar Maples exists as an educational venture, and all of the syrup they brew each year is give away as samples to tour guests. Over the course of the sap-running season, Coral Woods’ average maple syrup production is just five gallons!
Coral Woods Conservation Area is located at 7400 Somerset Dr, Marengo, IL 60152. For more information. visit the McHenry County Conservation District’s site.
J.R. says
We did this when my daughter was young and it was fun.