Day Sixteen - Champaign IL

Today we traveled through three states: Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois. We left La Crosse, WI around 7:45am again with partially cloudy skies. Our route had us once again following the Mighty Mississippi on the Great River Road. We would cross over the river to ride through Iowa and then cross over again to ride in Illinois.

This road is quite the treat. If you get the chance to ride this road, do it! It offers varied views of rolling countryside, sheer cliffs along the river and fantastic views of the river and all the quaint little towns along the banks.

 

 

We were pleasantly surprised by Iowa, which is gorgeous along the Great River Road.

It was not the flat cornfields we thought we’d see, but instead had sweeping views of the Mississippi valley once up on the ridgelines.

We were also met with stiff westerly winds. And even more brutal were some of the “fresh country” air. The pretty scenery seemed to hide the source until the pig houses were revealed. Between the pig houses and the chuck wagons spreading the foul stench for all those unfortunate to be in their wake, there were plenty of sources for the powerful scents.

Shortly after entering Iowa, Rob, Michele, and Tom had a close encounter with a large bald eagle. Sitting on the left side of road, the eagle took off in the same direction that the trio was traveling. By the time Rob and Michele reached the eagle, he was at just about eye level and within 10 feet of them as the magestic bird fought to gain speed and altitude. Michele said that she was able to see the bald eagles beautiful eyes we were so close!

Some of the Iowa towns had a lot of charm, character, and interesting architecture. Marquette and Sherrill come to mind. We stopped for a leg stretcher in Marquette. The town had constructed a memorial for all those in the Marquette area that had made the ultimate sacrifice in all the wars from the Civil War to Panama.

Also of note in Marquette, the fuel station/convenience store had the cleanest bathroom any of us had seen in a gas station. It was as clean as the bathroom at home! It even had a flower arrangement! LOL

Michele noticed these three boys on their way to do some fishing. Naturally the smallest of the boys was pulling the cart. ;-)

 We continued south along the Great River Road passing through Dubuque were we crossed back over the Mississippi River into Illinois.

We stopped in Savannah, IL for lunch, about 100 miles since our last break.

Afterwards, we headed out for the remaining 170 miles to our final destination.

Along the way we were treated with interesting signs.

At Port Bryon, we left the Great River Road and headed due East on I-80 towards Champagne, Illinois, today’s destination. About 45 miles out, we encountered rough construction traffic (our luck!) where three lanes of highway were merged into just one for what looked like three construction workers painting new pavement. We were lucky the temperatures today never exceeded 82 degrees because it was hot in stop and go traffic that took at least 30 minutes to get through.

We arrived at the hotel just before 6pm, probably our earliest arrival in the entire two weeks! Today’s mileage was 414 miles. Tomorrow we continue east across Indiana and Ohio, ending in West Virginia.