Monday, July 06, 2009
Day 21: Greenville, IL to St Louis, MO
After a quick ride down 40, we stopped at Pocahontas, which we discovered to be the home of country music star Grechen Wilson.
Pocahontas was also where I-70 and US-40 merged for a while. Fortunately the frontage road was easy to follow and we had an easy ride in to Highland. We stopped for lunch at a Subway, where Jillian and I once again admired the outdoor adventure toys you could get with your kid meal. We didn't have any space on the bike, so we couldn't get one.
We had two options form here. Either we could stay on US-40 or we could switch onto IL-143 and stay north of I-70. We decided to stay on 40, which was fine, but probably the wrong decision.
After passing through a swamp, we were really hot and hungry. Fortunately the Garmin reported an ice cream stand ahead. Excited, we pedaled on. Misty's was on the corner of US-40 and IL-162, where we'd turn off US-40 forever. We stopped to take a picture, since we'd spent two weeks pedaling the same highway and now we were going to finally be riding some different roads.
St Louis is famous for being muggy and today was no exception. We were miserable and so excited to maybe get some ice cream and take it easy a minute, but then we discovered that Misty's was closed! Jillian almost burned the place down.
After passing through Troy IL-162 started to have a smaller shoulder and we started to have a lot less fun. Soon we passed by something very curious - bicycle parking next to a corn field.
A little bit of investigation helped us discover an extensive bicycle path network. We scrapped our previous plans and got on this path. The paths were amazing.
Though we missed our turn on the path, causing us to do a few extra miles, we didn't mind. We had shade, well marked paths with regular rest areas, easy access to civilization, and no traffic. We were able to ride these paths almost all the way to the Chain of Rocks bridge. While studying the map I discovered that if we'd taken IL-143 we might have run into the paths even sooner, letting us ride almost traffic free all the way to the river.
The Chain of Rocks bridge trail starts with a smaller bridge over the canal. It was a former two lane bridge that had been converted so that bicycles could have a lot of space, with a barrier to keep cars away. Not that there were many cars on the bridge, but it was good riding.
Once across the canal we had a pleasant ride through a mostly forested island before coming to the end of the road where the Chain of Rocks Bridge began. This bridge had been totally converted to pedestrian and bicycle use, which made for amazing riding.
To our left we saw what looked like water castles, but were actually water intakes from the World's Fair.
Crossing the Mississippi was awesome, and I started to feel like we'd actually done something impressive.
If we looked into the distance we could just make out the arch. This was the closest we got to the arch, since we had a lot of other things to do in town and not much time.
At the center of the bridge was a bike rack, right on the state line. This made us optimistic about the bike routes through St Louis we'd read about. A group of tourists was kind enough to take a photo of us.
This bridge was also cool because of the turn in it.
At the center was a variety of Route 66 signs and such. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to refill our tank.
Jillian took a rest on a fun bench.
Once across we had a fun ride through the park while we tried to find Chambers Rd, which was listed as a bike route. We had a lot of trouble, and ended up doing multiple laps around the park. I'm sure the people in the cars that watched us doing laps were amused. When we did finally find it, we were very disappointed to find that there was a huge difference between bike path and bike route. Chambers Road had virtually no shoulder, lots of traffic, a number of hills, and lots of traffic lights. It was a terrible introduction to St Louis.
We got to Emily's parents house without any real trouble though, and after showering and enjoying a delicious, home cooked meal they took us out for Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. The lines were a little ridiculous (I know the picture doesn't show that, but that's only because they were almost closed when we took the photo).
Ted Drewes only serves vanilla custard. But we ordered "concretes" which consisted of a number of different ingredients blended with the custard. They were awesome.
On the drive home we saw an incredibly large Amoco sign. More roadside advertisements we enjoyed.
On our return, we stayed up even later talking with Emily's parents, who were great company and hosts. But eventually we found some sleep, excited to have a car that we could use to explore the city the next day.
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| posted at: 09:07 |
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