You are looking south at Idlewild Slough which is a large stream that separates Kaskaskia Precinct of Randolph County, Illinois on the left from the State of Missouri on the right. Now if you know your geography you will say, "Wait a minute ol' Buffalo. The Mississippi River is the Illinois/Missouri border." And you would be correct, excepting Kaskaskia Precinct. Now I like strange, or odd, or weird historic places and Kaskaskia certainly fills the bill. It is a 24 square mile exclave of Illinois found on the western, or Missouri bank, of the Mississippi River with a population of about 40. You can't even reach it by car from Illinois without going through Missouri first. In the 18th Century French colonists and Native Americans made up a thriving population of 7,000 people and Kaskaskia was on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River. It was the first capital of the State of Illinois in 1818-19. Two floods in 1844 and 1881 changed everything. So much river bank timber had been cut down for steamboat fuel that the floods carried away the soil and the Mississippi took over the channel of the Kaskaskia River. Kaskaskia became an island cut off from the rest of Illinois by the Mississippi River. It still is today with Idlewild Slough and the Old River channel, which are really just two large streams, separating Kaskaskia Precinct from Missouri. More pics and commentary on the amazing history of Kaskaskia coming up!