Muscatine, to Burlington, IA
Via Illinois

Friday, September 19, 2003
Distance Cycled: 60 miles
Total elevation gain: 650 feet
Our Total Flat Tires on trip to date: 1

We again got started early today after eating a good breakfast at the motel. We were riding before 8:00 AM. Although we started the day and ended the day in Iowa, we spent the entire day riding our bicycles through Illinois. The first thing in the morning we crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois and the last thing in the afternoon we crossed the Mississippi River back into Iowa. We could not find any motels on the Illinois side of the river. For the first time in four days the wind was not a factor in our ride. We actually had a slight tail wind all day with most of the wind from the side. We traveled so fast that we did not stop for lunch but just ate the food we carried on the bicycles. Instead of stopping every 5 miles, like we did earlier, we would go 10 to 15 miles between stops.

You could see for miles across the Illinois farmland. For the first 20 miles we were on the edge of a large flood plain and every creek or river flowing into the Mississippi River was bordered on both sides by levee's to keep the Mississippi River off the farmland when it is above its usual banks. For the past three or four days the only crops that we have seen has been soybeans and field corn that was usually very poor looking because of a lack of rain. Today the field corn looked somewhat better. In many places the corn stalks were still green while the only green corn stalks we saw during the past days were those at the bottom of a hill. We stopped at a covered bridge that is now part of a highway wayside and is no longer used for traffic.

There is really a contrast between Iowa and Illinois. Today we climbed 650 feet all day and at least 300 feet occurred as we left Illinois and traveled to our motel in Burlington. The southern Illinois landscape is very, very flat.