Day 22 - May 3 - Columbia, IL to St. Charles, MO - Crossing the T.....Part One

Day 22 - May 3 - Columbia, IL to St. Charles, MO

Who Put These Hills Here?!

John’s Story

This is what it looked like outside our hotel room window from 8:00 last night to 6:00 this morning.

When we left the hotel at 8:15 the roads were wet but the rain had completely stopped.

We stayed in Columbia last night because the wizened heads at the Eagle’s lodge in Chester told us not to stay in Cahokia, that it was a good place to buy drugs but not a good place to spend the night. This fellow made the mistake we avoided.

The route from Cahokia to the McKinley Bridge at St. Louis was one of my most difficult sections when I was planning.

Lots of sneaking under and around huge interstate junctions.

We managed to get through East St. Louis without incident. Another one of those common knowledge “don’t go there” places.

We arrived at the McKinley Bridge Roadside Park at the east end of the bridge and waited for a planned rendezvous. The park commemorates the period from 1926 to 1936 when the McKinley Bridge was the first crossing of the Mississippi River by Route 66.

Our sister Dorothy and her husband John spent last night with the same cousin with whom we’re spending tonight, on their way from Rochester, Minnesota south to Memphis. We planned to meet at this easy to find spot to say hello for a few minutes and have a mini family reunion. We had a short visit and each of us went our own way. I think Ed has some better pictures.

Ruger the Wonder Dog posing for the camera.

The McKinley Bridge has a dedicated bike lane on one side that facilitated our crossing.

Looking back at the off-ramp of the bike lane.

Does riding off the levee count as a hill?

On the Riverfront Trail north of St. Louis. In the early morning hours of May 21, 1855, a small group of runaway slaves and their guides crossed the Mississippi River from St. Louis, attempting to reach a route to freedom through Illinois. Accompanying them was Mary Meachum, a free woman of color, the widow of a prominent black clergyman. A colorful wall mural interprets the Meachum event. In December 2001, the Meachum site was dedicated as part of the National Park Service’s Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.

Excuse me! Now I know what those barriers on bike paths to keep motor vehicles off are called.

We turned west off the Riverfront Trail to ride across the north St. Louis area. If I’d known about the multitude of steep hills along the route I might have decided to ride all the way around to Grafton and take the Katy Trail to St. Charles.

When we finally got across the hilly area and were to descend the steep hill into the Missouri River bottom, we came across a closed road. The road had been closed for a while. There were shrubs 2’-3’ tall growing in the cracks of the road. I thought perhaps it was a situation of a neighborhood successfully getting a busy road into it closed. Not so.

Look behind Ed. There was a crack across the road where it dropped a foot from one side to the other had been roughly patched, and a lot of other undulation of the road surface. Not an earthquake fault, I’m sure. Probably slope failure so severe they decided not to repair it. We made it through.

We crossed the bottomland and made it across the Missouri River bridge to St. Charles.

Another bridge with a dedicated bike lane.

Looking down on the Katy Trail from the Missouri River bridge.

Just as we did last year on our transcontinental ride, we walked our bikes up the hill to my wife’s cousin’s house.

Made it to Lois’s, cleaned up, ran out to find beer, and spent the evening with Lois and her friend Dave.

Tomorrow we will be camping between the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. There may not be a cell phone signal to publish a journal entry. Stay tuned.

Ed’s Story

The Hampton Inn had a good breakfast compared to other motels we have stayed at. They even had oatmeal I could eat.

We left around 8 since we had plans to meet our sister and BIL around 10. It was only 20 miles to our meeting point.

Since we are in the suburbs of East St Louis the majority of the ride was in quasi-populated areas. There were a lot of turns on the route vice just a straight path.

I’ve seen air traffic control towers before but there is no airport here. As I look around I see trains.

An overhead view of the train yard. No wonder they need someone to watch over them.

Old bridge supports. Not sure whether the bridge we are on or the one in the distance replaced it.

After passing through Dupo we headed to Cahokia, where we originally planned to spend last night. I am not sure where the hotel we were going to stay at was, but I never saw one. But then again I didn’t really see very many places to eat either.

We changed roads one time going under a bridge. Due to the rain they had in the past few days, there was water covering the road under the bridge. The water was standing and not rushing so we were able to ride through it.

Luckily we weren’t swept away by the non-rushing water.

We continued through East St Louis getting a good, but distant view of the Arch.

We took a wrong turn at Cahokia and ended up in Brooklyn. We later went through Venice..we’re world travelers.

We finally got to the park at the McKinley Bridge where we met Dorothy and John.

A bathroom would have been nice but was not in the plans.

We visited with them and the pets for a while. John plied us with snacks and more.

L to R: John C., John S., Dorothy S. Front Row: Yours truly

We said goodbye and hit the road. The bridge had a great bike lane as part of it. Another easy cross of the river.

As I said, a great bike path across the river.

The Riverfront Trail pics:

We joined this after crossing the bridge.

There was a large flood wall to the left and to the right trees and the river. Where there were openings in the wall, there were giant gates that can close to seal it.

John talked a lot about the hills going through northern St. Louis so I won’t repeat them. I also won’t repeat what I said about all the hills when I was climbing them.

About one mile from Lois’s house we crossed the Missouri River. Imagine crossing the Mississippi and the Missouri the same day.

Another great bike trail across the river.

We finally got to Lois’s house after pushing our bike up the killer hill.

Our ride:Tomorrow 44 miles to Kampsville, possibly getting wet later in the day…we will see.

Until tomorrow, happy biking!

Today's ride: 48 miles (77 km)
Total: 1,080 miles (1,738 km)

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