The school day ends and freshmen students hurry out of the Freshman Campus, eager to go home. A group of friends crosses the side walk into town, the sweet smells of food, coffee and fresh air. They decide to do something before they head to someone’s house, walking down the street to see the RiverWalk, all of the restaurants, and the indoor theater. But they ignore all the things to do, deciding McHenry is boring, and head home. With all of the fun things to do in McHenry, people don’t seem to look hard enough.

There’s many different places in McHenry for teenagers to walk or hang around. For instance, downtown McHenry, the Riverwalk, the McHenry Outdoor Theater, Chain O’ Lakes, Moraine Hills State Park, Volo Auto Museum, Stratton Lock and Dam and McHenry Fiesta Days are all fun places to go or hangout, depending on the time of year.

For instance, in Wonder Lake over the summer they’d have ski shows every Friday. People get to gather around and watch people perform routines. They even have food trucks to buy food at. But, most people don’t come due to not wanting to leave their house, or they think it’s boring without even giving it a shot.

There’s also many beaches and parks hangout at with friends. Parents bring their kids to play at these parks, which are perfect to watch the sun set at. There’s a couple little shops people can go into and window shop, or buy things they don’t need but want anyways. There’s also huge neighborhoods so people could just go walk around and explore. Sometimes, the little things can be the most fun. People just have to make the best of it — and be open to experiencing it.

With there being so many things to do, the people in McHenry are boring instead of the town. The kids or the adults never leave their houses. Or they never think to give anything a chance. People do it for five minutes and leave because they think it’s boring, but it could possibly take longer to get to the fun part. Too many people just go on their phones or lay in their beds all day, binge watch their favorite shows for hours on end eating snacks, people watch Netflix for at least 3.2 hours a day, meaning at least 99 hours a month. They do absolutely nothing, not even bothering to explore the different things they can do.

In downtown McHenry, there’s plenty of things to do. There are plenty of little stores like Black Orchid Boutique, Water Street Shoppe, Aesthetics Boutique, and more that people can go in, restaurants they can go to eat, the Riverwalk that is a two point three mile loop, even the Outdoor Theater, where they can camp out in their car and eat snacks while watching movies. Or an indoor one in case people don’t feel like sitting outside.

About a month ago the town also had a mural event where people could go and paint a part of it, they had free coffee and donuts. But not as many people showed up, especially younger people.

Most people think McHenry is boring. In some ways it can be. But the people are supposed to make it fun, which makes people boring since they aren’t trying to. Sure McHenry doesn’t have millions of stores or places you can go, it does have places to get food and walk around, even some little shops. It doesn’t have hundreds like the mall. But it has plenty for the daily things people need such as groceries, where they can go to Meijer or Walmart, or even clothes, where people can go to JC Penney.

A couple of friends decide to leave the house they were at and walk around town. They decide to get coffee and walk along the RiverWalk. Laughing, smiling, they take fun pictures together as they walked, watching the day go by, having a blast, wnjoying each other’s company more than they thought they would. And at the end of the day, they ended up having more fun than they thought they would.