The first stop was the new confluence park in St. Charles, MO - the Edward "Ted" and Pat Jones Confluence Point State Park. Long name for a little park. The interesting thing is that rock point - the river on the left (the darker slower water) is the Mississippi, the river on the right (the lighter, browner, faster water) is the Missouri.
The confluence - the water churns where they meet.
Looking back from the point.
The top of that flagpole was the high water mark of the 1993 flood.
Don't walk off the path to the point else you'll disturb the wildlife.
Next stop was over to Hartford, IL and the Lewis & Clark State Historic Site, a museum devoted to Lewis and Clark situated near their point of departure at
Camp River Dubois.
Amongst other things they have a life-size cutaway of their keelboat.
On 3 in IL there is a bridge with a metal mesh deck - you can see the river through it if you look down.
Next was the old Chain of Rocks bridge, a slight detour off of 3. This used to be a regular road
bridge, but after 270 was completed it was turned into a pedestrian only
path.
A slightly out of focus thistle near the bridge.
This used to be route 66 - its printed on the bridge deck.
This part of the bridge is over a forest, while the rest is over the
Mississippi.
Its a long bridge, and yes, that is a picnic table.
These used to be for the water system for the area around Chouteau Island,
the island formed by the Chain of Rocks canal.
The canal was built to connect the Miss to itself as the rock chain in the river was impassible to regular
river traffic. The rock chain, even when the water is high, still makes wakes
in the river. In the distance downtown St. Louis can be seen.
The bridge bends to the right. Odd.
Humans have tried to kill everything in the river, but dammit, we missed some stuff.
Continuing south on 3, a detour takes you through East St. Louis. Its
recommended that if you are in a car, you do not stop, but I paused long enough
to take pictures of this wooden trestle railroad bridge. Looks like a bit of
it is missing except for the rails too.
Going very south on 3 leads to some pretty country and interesting side roads.
Here are some horses.
Nice little side detour.
Its not easy to tell the driveway from the proper road.
The Nu-Way Lighting Company World Headquarters is here. Yep.
White swans on the road. Cool.
A black swan in the pond. Also cool.
Going further on 3 another detour leads to a house by a funky rock formation.
We drove the gravel road on top of the levee for a while - its about 15 feet
or so above the ground on either side, though the further we went the lower the
right side became. The left is farmland, the right forest and the Mississippi river. Its a good road - saw turkeys and a turtle.
Its one 'o them roads that kicks up dust.
Not far from Prairie du Rocher is Fort de Chartres State Historic Site, a
reconstructed French fort from the early 1700s.
The view from the front of the fort is very good - the bluffs and the bluff road are in the distance.
An ancient gas station in Prairie du Rocher.
Continuing south we stopped here wondering what the signs were doing next to
a rock face. Turns out is the Modoc Rock Shelter, inhabited 10,000 years ago.
They really ought to tell people where this is. Jill for scale.
The furthest south in IL we went was the town of Chester. Elzie Segar,
cartoonist of Popeye, was born here in 1894, and supposedly his characters
were inspired by other residents. We actually came here for the bridge back
into MO to 61.
North on 61 leads to Kaskaskia. The center of the Miss is the state line
between IL and MO, but a century or so ago the channel moved but, here, the
state line didn't. We're now on the western bank of the Miss, but we're back in
IL. Note that Kaskasia, when it was the original capital of IL, had several
hundred residents - its now down to 18.
They have an official Liberty Bell too, though the building was closed that
houses it though as it was after hours. Still, it has windows.
Back on 61 we had to wait a few minutes at one point for a train to pass.
We stopped at St. Genevieve so I could get this Coke a Cola from a McDonald's
drive-through. Without flouride in their water supply even this tastes
different.
It was a nice day - Jill snapped a couple pics through my moon roof as I drove on.
There is a nice overlook on 61 where one can see a river, trees and fields. It
gives statistics too.
