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Trip to Missouri, Summer 2007, Part 2 Thursday, June 21, Destination, Unknown to begin
with, eventually Muscatine Iowa So we took off out of Laurie and headed for the Missouri River. The general plan was to follow the Missouri River almost to St. Louis and then head over to follow the Mississippi River in order to head towards home. Basically, it was Lewis and Clark meets Marquette and Joliet. Initially, the road along the Missouri was boring. It started to get more interesting when we turned off and hit some county roads. Jim had the map and he just kept the letters coming. There was very little traffic and the roads were decent - great fun. As we approached St. Louis, we hopped I-70 for a few miles and then headed north toward the Mississippi River. It was very hot and none of us had hydration systems or cooling vests so we stopped every couple of hours to cool off. After turning north off of I-70, we headed for the Great River Road which follows the Mississippi River through several states. A couple of interesting things about the road came to pass. First, by and large it is boring. There are stretches of brilliance, but they are somewhat few and far between. Second, you can travel for miles and miles and never see the river. Third, there are lots of smaller river towns that you get to ride through. There is a measure of charm in many of these small towns, but for some of them, it is a very small measure. We got a ways up the road and stopped at a nice, cool restaurant and had a long lunch. It was a decent hamburger and the Mississippi River was splendidly in view. I was chatting with the waitress and for fun asked her what the name of the river was fully expecting a sassy response. She honestly did not know what river it was but was pretty sure it was the Missouri. We tried to convince her that it was indeed the Mississippi and that the Missouri was 75 miles south. I'm not sure she believed us, even after we pulled out a map (which really just made things worse, "Where are we again?"). After lunch, we headed towards Canton, MO to find a ferry. We found it, waited for about five minutes and then the ferry arrived. The ferry pilot was quite efficient and no sooner did we have the sidestands down and he was off. The ferry does a neat little u-turn before it crosses the river. We made the turn and started across the river. The pilot came down and collected four dollars from each of us for the boat ride, failing to see the humor in the idea that June 21 was, "Motorcycles Ride Free" day. His comment, "This thing don't run on water boys, that'll be four dollars." In some respects, the long lunch would turn into our demise of sorts. We originally planned to stop in Fort Madison, Iowa but when we got to the turnoff, it was about 6:00 and we all felt good. It was cooling off and we decided to get a few more miles down the road. After making the commitment to keep going (there are only so many bridges) I noticed a few clouds start to brew. I didn't think much of them but as we kept going, it started to become clear that they were going to be an issue. The stretch of the Great River Road from Hamilton, IL to (and through) Nauvoo, IL was really pretty. It ran right on the river, it was green, lush and the temperature continued to cool. Another thing about the Great River Road is that it turns very frequently and I find it easy to miss the signs. I missed one and we ended up going about 10 miles out of the way. We decided to end the day in Muscatine, IA and headed there - the weather from the west was looking very significant. We finally came to a T in the road. Muscatine was ten miles west and cities in Illinois were to the east. It was very obvious that west was simply not an option based on the weather, so we turned east. We got to Illinois City, IL looking for a hotel - nothing - closest was in the Quad Cities almost 40 miles north. The sky was looking black and green and we were literally in the middle of nowhere. I spotted a park with a large community picnic shelter. It seemed like the best option (and it was). We got the bikes and ourselves under cover just as the sky opened up and unloaded what seemed like lots of heaven's fury. Thunder, lightning and a cat and dog or two rained down upon us. There were several lightning strikes nearby (we decided that leaning on the steel girders of the shelter was a bad idea) and the thunder was deafeningly loud. A few minutes into this mess, Rick, a guy on a Harley joined us under the shelter. It rained for a good 45 minutes and then finally started to let up and even stop. As it reduced itself to a drizzle, the sky turned the strangest shade of orange that I have ever seen (the pictures don't do it justice). It was almost surreal and made me wonder what life on Mars would be like. We pulled out of the shelter and headed for Muscatine, IA. Bruce really wanted a hotel with a pool but we settled for a Super 8, a cool room and a hot pizza. Friday, June 22, Destination, home Epilogue |