Day 21 - May 2 - Chester, IL to Columbia, IL - Crossing the T.....Part One

Day 21 - May 2 - Chester, IL to Columbia, IL

Riding the Hilltop

Ed’s Story

The mattress in the hostel was surprisingly comfortable. It was even better once I figured out how to get into and out of the lower bunk.

If you don’t know, I spent 6 years on 2 different submarines with bunks like those at the hostel and I had no problems getting in and out. Then again I was almost 40 years younger.

If you need a haircut there is a barbershop in Chester. Just make sure they cut the right end; that is a caboose.

I found myself pushing my bike up the first hill on the route, which was less than 500’ from the start. I had no momentum to start me up; but then again the hill was over 10% grade.

We changed our route today to stay on IL-3 to Ellis Grove. This way we had a few easy rollers along the hilltop, vice descending to the flood plain to get there. We would have had another significant climb to get into Ellis Grove. This was a smart decision.

He asked if I wanted to race; said the last one he challenged was a hare.

We turned west at Ellis Grove and got off the main road. Before our final downhill you could see both Illinois and Missouri.

Missouri across the river. I think John is taking the same picture.

You could definitely tell we were in the floodplain.

The view goes on forever. There are houses along this road; I wonder what they pay for flood insurance.

Two decaying fixer uppers…a barn and an old horse trailer.

We had a brief stop in Modoc to put on sunscreen.

Any other time we might stop for a beer but it was only 9:15.

And the ride continued.

I could not figure out which lunar lander this belonged to as there were no markings on it.

Who planted the grove of trees in the floodplain? Maybe that’s where they go deer hunting.

As we rode along the bluffs, rocky cliff faces showed up next to us. John got really excited because of the rocks. We suddenly started feeling a lot of freezing cold air and then found it was coming from holes in the rock face.

John desperately wanted to climb the fence and go exploring, but the sign did say Danger No Trespassing. Besides he didn’t have any warmer clothes; that’s how cold the air was.

The view through the gate; there is standing water inside.

We saw several openings but couldn’t figure out what there were.

When we saw the sign for the Mississippi Lime Co, John had to stop and ask.

I will let him tell the tale.

We stopped in a little no name town for a snack. From here we only had about 14 miles to go.

The town had a park with a shelter house and a water spigot. Who needs anything else?

We had to walk our bikes back to the road as it was too gravelly to ride.

Saw this house on the hilltop. You can see the plain below where we are. The house has a great view and won’t flood if the Mississippi does.

We made it to Columbia where we did some shopping before we checked into the Hampton Inn. We plan to eat at the West Park Bowl and Columbia City Saloon tonight. It is just a short walk from the hotel.

Today’s ride:

Tomorrow’s ride is about 47 miles to John’s wife Carol’s cousin Lois’s house in St. Charles, MO; so yes we cross the Mississippi River again.

Until tomorrow, happy biking!

John’s Story

I had half expected to see other cyclists at the bike hostel last night, given that Chester is on the Transamerica Trail, but we were alone. Good thing, too, as it was a bit cramped with just the two of us. The bunks were stacked three high, and so closely spaced that, lying on my back on the mattress, I could not fully flex my knee without it hitting the bottom of the bunk above me. There were bunks enough for nine cyclists, but I can’t imagine how you’d fit that many people with their gear inside all at once.

I was rearranging things in my panniers last night when I discovered that a bottle of orange juice had leaked, and the bottom of the pannier was awash in OJ. Argh! I emptied out the pannier, dumped the OJ, and commenced a cleanup process. Fortunately there was a water hydrant just outside the bunkhouse where I could wash off the contents of the pannier. Being my food pannier most everything in it was in plastic bags or the original plastic or metal packaging. Once everything was hosed off and dried with my towel, I filled and emptied the pannier itself with water several times to rinse it out, then dried it as best I could and left it empty overnight to finish drying. It was dry enough this morning to repack.

All of this was happening as the only thunderstorms within hundreds of miles were bearing down on Chester. I managed to finish the cleanup before the rain started, but was able to enjoy a good lightning show from the storms.

It rained for a couple hours, and was clear and fresh this morning for our ride. We’re in a motel in Columbia, IL tonight (no campgrounds around here) and the forecast is for a stormy night, with the rain tapering off about the time we hit the road tomorrow.

I managed to get up the very steep hill just down the street from the hostel this morning by standing up and grinding to the top, though I did have to walk partway back down the hill to pick up the lung I coughed up.

Ed mentioned that we revised our route for today to avoid having to climb back to the top of the bluffs again. We just stayed at the top for the first 10 miles before slowly dropping back to the floodplain. After Ellis Grove we were back on the original route. The road was smooth with very little traffic, and the only hills were either levees or small undulations along the edge of the plain.

This scene struck me as particularly peaceful and pastoral.

There are so many old brick houses in this part of the world that have been abandoned. These are not stick built buildings with brick veneer facing like modern homes, which would have collapsed long ago when the wooden structure deteriorated. They are BRICK. I’ll bet if you stripped them of the rotted wood you’d have a sufficiently sturdy brick structure to rebuild around. Alas, these old places are out in the middle of nowhere where most of us wouldn’t care to live.

I’m not sure this house is occupied, though it does have a mailbox. I particularly like the interspecies outdoor plumbing, an outhouse for the owner and a fire hydrant for the dog.

Have you ever read Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken? I wonder what he would have done if he came upon these divergent roads. I can tell you one thing. If he’d been on a bicycle he would not have turned right.

The bluffs in the far distance are in Missouri.

The reconstruction of an old French fort dating from 1720 would have been an interesting side trip, but we were focused dead ahead.

Looks like giant spiders have snared this old house in their webs.

As we approached Modoc the bluffs became very cliffy (if that’s a word). With all the houses snugged up to the bluff it reminded me of the Illinois version of the ancient cliff dwellings in the American Southwest.

I could see cross bedding in the cliffs, so I was pretty sure they are sandstone. I stopped to look closer at one point and confirmed my diagnosis. The sandstone is sitting on a limestone.

When the cliffs sneak up on unwary buildings…

My impression of the bluffs with the houses below as cliff dwellings was closer to the truth than I thought. Two miles past Modoc we came across Modoc Rock Shelter Historic Site. Archaeologists have determined that early Native Americans camped or lived here between 4,000 and 9,000 years ago.

Any lion holes were abundant in the shelter of the cliffs, but no one seemed to be at home. I remember as a kid dropping grains of sand into the holes to watch the ant lions come up to clean them out.

Cliff swallows taking advantage of the shelter provided by the overhanging cliffs to build their nests.

We stopped at a small market in Prairie du Rocher (pronounced roach-er). Why do Americans have to bastardize the pronunciation of foreign words? The town was founded by the French in 1722, so it celebrated its tricentennial two years ago. The restroom in the market was behind some double doors and up a flight of stairs. The moment I walked though those doors the smell of old house hit me. When I came back down, I told the woman at the checkout that it smelled like a 150 year old building and asked about its age. She told me there was a plaque on the side of the building that she had never read. The plaque said that the original business founded in 1839 moved into this building in 1872 due to flooding in older parts of town. It’s been in almost continuous use as a general store for 152 years. My guess was close.

The old market was robbed by two Confederate soldiers who escaped imprisonment in Ste. Genevieve, MO, and fled across the Mississippi River . The skirmish nearby with the soldiers is said to be the only one on Illinois soil during the Civil War.

Once past Prairie du Rocher we began to ride through pockets of very cool air which seemed very odd. It became cooler and cooler until we started seeing huge holes cut into the side of the bluff, from which the cool air was emanating. When standing directly in front of whole it wold cold enough to cause shivering. It seemed pretty obvious that holes were mine entrances, it I wondered what on earth they could be mining.

Shortly thereafter we came across huge mounds on the river side of the road of what looked like gravel or crushed rock. Surely they’re not mining gravel from the bluff, I thought. There was a trailer office with the company name Mississippi Lime on the sign. We stopped, knocked on the door and walked in to find a secretary/receptionist at her desk. We asked about the holes in the cliff face, and found out that indeed they are mining limestone. She showed us a picture on the wall from 1952 of all the mine workers and pointed out her father. The vehicles in some of the other pictures suggested the mine had been there for perhaps 100 years.

About this time a man came out of the office in one end of the trailer to see what was going on. It was DJ the mining engineer. He told us the mine runs along the cliff for two miles and extends 3/4 mile under the bluff. They are mining high quality limestone (98%+ pure calcium carbonate) which has many industrial uses. They mine out about 75% of the area, leaving about 25% in the form of pillars to support the sandstone overburden. This particular site mines up to a half million tons of rock per year, but heir site at Ste. Genevieve mines up to 6 million tons of rock per year. It is shipped down the Mississippi in barges to Baton Rouge, LA for distribution.