[ride reports] [photo album this trip]
Illinois & Missouri
IL-MO (St. Louis Area) Tour
August 23-24, 2003Highlights
Saturday Day 1
At around 9am we were heading toward I-55. Changed over to I-80, which had major construction in many places. New pavement, closed lanes and my favorite, grooved surfaces and uneven lanes. At this rate we were not saving any time taking the highway. A small mistake in the route and we were traveling the wrong direction on I-74. That is what happens when you are getting your route together the night before in front of the TV while trying to watch a movie and look through a couple of maps. I knew we were going the wrong way in minutes since there was not supposed to be any bridges on this part of the trip. We needed to take I-74 east toward Peoria, not I-74 west. The goofy thing is at this point the highway goes south. They had construction on the bridge anyway so we exited. After some riding around trying to figure out where we were, we made to I-74 East and then to 34W traveling toward the Mississippi River. 34 travels though cornfields. It may have had a sweeper or two, but mostly it is a straight road. Since it was around lunchtime, we crossed the river into Iowa for lunch in the town of Burlington. Found a place right on the river front called Drakes. It had plenty of outside seating and there was no one out there. I though the place might have been closed. Brian went inside to check and he came out with a menu and a waitress. The day wasn’t too hot, low to mid 80’s and sitting next to the river under the umbrella felt perfect. Brian ordered pastrami sandwich, which was very dry. I had a hamburger, which was pretty good. Prices were not cheap, the view was worth it though. This would be a good place to go to on a nice hot summer evening. The inside was very nice, even had a wine tasting room. The building probably used to be an old factory or warehouse, it still had the original wooden floors.
After lunch, we back tracked two miles over the river in to Illinois and made a right on to Carman Rd, which runs parallel to the river. I don’t really know how it is a river road, since you can’t see the river from it. It was a straight shot though the cornfields with an occasional sweeper. Matters didn’t improve as we headed south. We jumped around 96S and the river road, both were about the same, mostly straight, ok pavement, bad pavement at times. We came up to Navuoo. A historic little town with a huge white church up on a hill that overlooks the Mississippi river. Down the hill there was a bunch of old cabins. Hung out there for a bit to taking pictures. It was the hottest part of the day. Navuoo to Hamilton on 96S is the scenic route from my National Geographic book. It was nice. Running parallel to the river at all times, although that is about a 20 minute ride. There are actual turns and elevation changes, although part of this road is posted at 45mph. It is a narrow road with guard rails and many, many tar snakes. It would have been nice to pull over at one of the places to take pictures, but by the time I came upon them, it was too late to turn in. The water is stagnant there with water lilies, very scenic.
In Hamilton 96S was under construction so we took the river road. Probably the worst road on this trip. Bumpy, very bad pavement for the first 8-10 minutes and not so much better after that. Again, no river to be seen but plenty of corn. Then 24W to 57. We rode though Quincy, which looks like an old town with old architecture and nice suspended bridges. The bridge 24W was also under construction going into Missouri. 24 had some sweepers, and good pavement so did 57. We took some pictures and headed south again. 57 turns into 96. More corn fields. We should have stopped for gas in Quincy since none of the towns on the way had any gas stations. Most of the 96 was straight though the corn fields with an occasional turn here and there. Sun started setting and I had barely 20 miles left in my tank and I had to use the bathroom. We went from town to town hoping for a gas station but nothing. Even where the highway intersects there was nothing. Finally took a road west and we ran into Hannibal, MO. We stayed there last year so I knew there was going to be Hotels and gas stations, it’s a touristy place and not that small of a town.
We got a room at the Traveloge for $66. It was a suite with kitchenette. It was near the downtown and everything closed at 9PM. We checked in and got to our room by 9:10PM. I was too tired to ride uptown for food so we ordered pizza and breadsticks. Hearth oven crust with provolone cheese. It was good although delivery was over an hour. It’s Ok, the only other option was Dominos Pizza. We watched “Trains, Planes and Automobiles” on the TV. I’ve never seen the flick and how funny that we were on the way to St. Louis ourselves.
Sunday, Day 2
We were out on the bikes shortly after 8AM. Since we were already in Missouri, we took 79S again to Louisiana. That road was better than I remember it last year. I am still not able to ride it as fast as I would like to. All the turns are blind, usually after a hill. Most turns are posted at 40mph and at 50-55mph I feel like I’m leaning a lot. It’s also narrow, with guardrails and many tar snakes. Sometimes gravel in the tighter corners. There is one tar snake that we actually went around. It was huge and right in the middle of a nice high-speed sweeper. It was thicker than my tire and I would not want to hit that at lean. At the gas station on 54 we met some motorcycle people. Most looking at the Triumph, but one guy rode in on a Z1000 Kawi, which looks pretty nice. We talked for quite a bit. Then we took 54NE over the bridge to Illinois. This road had lots more turns/sweepers. Came to 96S a few minutes later. The more we rode south the better it was. More turns, although we were still in the midths of the cornfields. Saw some wild turkeys up by the road too. Then 96S turned left. The road heading straight still looked wavy but we had no time to do any exploring. We ended up on the other side of the divide and we met up with 100S. It was also a nice road, with many sweepers. There was a few more towns on this side of the divide, then on the other side
Another bridge construction and 100 crossed the Illinois River where it continued. A large park on the right with a marina was my bathroom stop then a town of Grafton was the next gas stop. We went to the gas station where we ran into a St Louis sportbike group ride. A few people came up and talked to us. A guy handed out some business cards for the website. Then they left and we decided to get lunch in town since it was 12:30PM. We let our noses guide us to a fish market place on the other side of the street. Ordered at a window and grabbed a seat upstairs in the blazing sun since all the downstairs deck seats were all being used. I had a cod sandwich and Brian had walleye. We shared some hushpuppies. For a minute there, looking out at the Mississippi eating deep fried fish and hush puppies, it was almost like being in Louisiana. This town is all about the cruisers. I don’t think I’ve seen so many at once, except when I was driving home from Montana during Sturgis week last summer. This was the hottest time of the day, especially riding slow though a bunch of town with a full belly, but right after we left Grafton, 100 opened up in to a 4 lane highway with the Mississippi on one side and huge cliffs on the other. It almost looked like the highway 1 in California a bit. This is one of the scenic roads from my National geographic book and it really is. Too bad there was no where to pull over and I didn’t have the video camera mounted. This really doesn’t look like Illinois over there. We continued following 100 to Alton, then it just ended and we didn’t know how to hook up with 145E. According to the map we were supposed to go straight, so we did and after a while of much Sunday traffic and many lights we did hit 145. It turned into a highway for a few minutes then to one lane, hit another small town that had the road detoured. Once we passed the town to our surprise the road dipped up and down and there was so many turns at once I was not prepared for them, and a few minutes later it was over and here was I-55. The highway is OK for an hour or two but after a while it does get boring. We made a pit stop at a steak n shake for some shakes to cool off. Today was a bit warmer than yesterday upper 80’s, maybe low 90's. We got on the highway at around 3PM and by 8:30PM we were in our driveway. I guess it wasn’t a total waste since Sunday had better roads and some cool towns on the way. But it’s safe to say even in Illinois, the river roads are straight even though the rivers aren’t.