Day 26- Kirksville, MO > Quincy, IL (76 miles)

June 2

 Today's route carried us across the mighty Mississippi River into Illinois, and we hit another significant milestone: 2,000 miles. The ride itself was pretty easy terrain and decent roads, so all good! As we hop from hotel to hotel, time seems to be going by very quickly. The time on the bike is the most relaxing part of the day (unless we have winds from hell or drivers from the Indy 500.) The rest of our days are more full than we expected as you are either packing or unpacking, washing clothes, eating, bathing, etc. plus we are in bed by 8 most nights.

Ride with GPS sent me my monthly recap for May...pretty crazy:

                                               

The route for the day:

I would be remiss to not have the quote of the day be from Mark Twain about the Big Muddy: "The Mississippi River will always have it's own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise; it has always torn down the petty basketwork of the engineers and poured its giant floods withersoever it chose, and it will continue to do this." Trivia: it is the second longest river in our country...the Missouri is longer. Second trivia item: the deepest part of the river is 200 ft near Algiers Point. Most amazing trivia: the river's basin drains more than 40% of the continental US...this blew my little mind. I have read the quote below from Twain over the years, and it always makes me chuckle out loud as he was the one who said 'there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.'

“The Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was twelve hundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy-six years ago. It was eleven hundred and eighty after the cut-off of 1722. It was one thousand and forty after the American Bend cut-off. It has lost sixty-seven miles since. Consequently its length is only nine hundred and seventy-three miles at present. . . . In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. This is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”

Ok, I have paid proper homage to the Big Muddy...

One more photo from the Missouri rollers...you have to experience them to appreciate it fully. The two days riding through those hills and farms are near the top of the list so far.

Pictures from the ride today:

We hit 2k miles at the first SAG today while still in Missouri.

Photo courtesy of our group What's App as you begin crossing the Mississippi.

Another photo from the bridge...the river is definitely muddy and moving fast right now.

Yep, we found a place by the water that had beer and chicken for sale.

This place is up the road from our hotel, and you have to admit that they have it going on!

Tomorrow, we head due east to Springfield, which is just south of Peoria...subtle hint to Greg D (don't you need another boondoggle work trip to HQ??) The ride is long at 106 miles...talk soon!