On the route out of town this morning we located the murals of the characters that Chester IL claims as their own. There are statues scattered throughout the town but I kind of prefer the colorful artwork someone painted on the side of these buildings.
The first few miles out of town carried some heavy traffic and wasn't the most bicycle friendly. It eventually transitioned to a roadway with better shoulders and straight runs to make us more visible.
You are never far from a railroad when traveling along the Mississippi.
You can sort of see what makes up one of the better sections of the IL road to Cape Girardeau in the right of this photo taken at a typical (guard)rail snack break today. Wendy saw a semi without its trailer who had the slogan " Turnin N Burnin" on the cab and that became our motivation for the day - keep (the pedals) turning and keep burning up the miles.
Wendy calls this her (alfalfa) Field of Dreams shot of me. We were off the highway on a parallel road along the levy in southern Illinois.
We were somewhere between the town of Wolf Lake and the town of Ware when we came across this street sign. I howled my approval of the name of the street. Just don't visit on a night with a full moon!
A business along the road we were on had this mosaic of the USA and where we are currently located on our adventure.
The river crossing from the IL to MO side of the Mississippi into Cape Girardeau was very bicycle friendly with easily a std car lane wide shoulder on the run up to the bridge and a still heafty shoulder on the bridge deck.
In Cape Girardeau we learned that the "Camping" part of the Cape Camping & RV Park must be silent because they were only allowing RVs and no tents even though their web site showed tents in its photos. No stars for that place. There were no other camping options in the immediate area. We spent our money at a nice budget hotel that we both liked instead.
Tomorrow we head further south, this time on the west side of the river. Good night y'all.
