Stunning Photos of What’s Hidden Inside This Illinois Quarry

The things we drive past every day, never knowing what beauty may be behind the fence. A drone captured a surprising photo of an Illinois quarry.

What if I told you there was a body of water in Illinois that looked like the waters of the Caribbean Sea just like your tropical vacation? On my first day visiting the Bahamas, I stood on my hotel balcony just gazing at the water. I'd never seen water that color, and I will never forget how it looked that day.

Thanks to someone and their drone camera, we can now see this 'place' in northern Illinois that resembles those Caribbean waters.

You've been driving past this 'place' for years and never knew what was going on inside that big fence. This 'place' made headlines when it was a filming location for a movie starring Illinois native, Bill Murray.

That movie was Groundhog Day, and the scene that was at this location was when Bill's character, Phil Connors, drives his truck off a cliff. Those of us who are from around Loves Park, Illinois know that location by a different name.

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Nimtz Quarry

Nimtz Quarry is located at 5300 Nimtz Road in Loves Park, and for decades they blasted rock mining for limestone products. That blasting stopped in the spring of 2011.

In 1997, Ted Uliassi started his around-the-world voyage in a hot air balloon called the 'J Rene' from the base of Nimtz Quarry. He did not succeed.

Today, Ted would need a boat to be at the bottom of the quarry and he certainly couldn't launch a hot air balloon from there.

Take a look at what's going on behind that fence at Nimtz Quarry, a fence you'll likely never get a chance to be on the other side of.

Like me, you probably have a few questions about that water. First, there won't be any swimming in 'Lake Nimtz' even though that water looks like the Caribbean. And the source of that water isn't rain. They've dug so far down that they hit the water table and the space filled up with water. Natural spring water.

In case you were wondering how deep that water is, according to one person I spoke with, it's 320 feet deep.

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