Day started promisingly. Light breakfast and the weather forecast showing HOT for the region we were due to be travelling. As seems to be the way in these here parts, when it’s hot there is also the chance of thunderstorms. The forecast wasn’t wrong.
We headed off about 8am along some really lovely open country roads and through some really quaint towns. One of those being Chatham, just south of Springfield. As a UK Chatham resident, I know which one I’d rather be in. Our first stop was in the county town of Carlinville. Basically a central square with the town radiating from it. We had about 40 minutes here to wander round and take a few snaps. The local bank LED display showed a temperature of 86 deg F at 10:00. Forecast was for it to get hotter and it did. Another town later on showing 97! Things of note in Carlinville for me were the old county jail, circa 1869 and a much more modern structure, the drive in bank. Fascinating.
From Carlinville we headed south west towards St Louis. As we crossed the Mississippi, we said farewell to Illinois and hello to Missouri. Immediately after the river crossing we turned off to the Chain of Rocks Bridge. This bridge is famous for having a 22 degree bend in the middle. The story goes that they built half out into the river and then discovered the bed rock had run out. They therefore had to make a kink in the bridge to relocate the bedrock and continue building to the other side. It has to be seen to be believed. The river is a mile wide at this point. You can walk out on the bridge, which I duly did but time constraints, the intense heat and sore feet meant I only got ¾ of the way across.
Next stop was for lunch, a small salad being the order of the day, washed down with free refills of ice cold raspberry lemonade. As we left the restaurant, the sky looked a little threatening. Gary our guide has a laptop hooked up to the weather centre in his van. He was a little worried that we were going to run into one of the thunderstorms they were forecasting or even worse, a twister. As it turned out we had a few spots and that was it. Before reaching our next stop our unfortunate chappie had his 4th drop of the tour. He’s fairly short and struggling when it comes to junctions. No harm done though.
Our next stopping place was a Route 66 museum. A small place of various memorabilia and selling pretty much anything you could want with the US66 logo on it. Postcards and a few other bits were purchased, so watch out for one of those….maybe.
From there things went downhill. Sure the weather was now looking fine, however, a bizarre incident meant one of our party got lost and we spent 20 minutes waiting at the side of the road while Gary went tearing back to try and find them. What happened was..... Vivien on bike 3, dropped her (rather Gary’s ) neck scarf. As the party was quite stretched out, 3 of us. made a left turn. Bike 4 saw we had and waited for bike 5. In the meantime bike 6 (David & Francoise) had seen the scarf in the road and turned round to get it, by which time bike 5 had made the left turn. Not realising, bike 6 went sailing by the turning. Eventually we carried on and after David having rung Gary, we met up again at a petrol station down the road, for the final stint to our hotel in Rolla. Plus the scarf was saved!
This place is more like a motel, albeit a Best Western. Bikes are all parked in front of our ground floor rooms. Currently, the group is sitting in chairs in the car park, drinking beer from Gary’s cold store and listening to his music on the truck's CD player. Bizarre. This shortly after we have eaten at the steak house at the bottom of the car park. This is unbelievable. We have just paid $10 for an eat as much as you like buffet. There’s steaks, chicken, fish, sausage, ribs, etc. a huge long salad bar with umpteen different salady options (though heavens knows why) and another bar serving puddings. All washed down once again with the free refill soft drinks. The salad bar alone makes those in pizza hut look like the crisper in your fridge! Looking around it’s not hard to see a number of very obese people and easy to see just how they get that way given the amount of food on offer. Never the less, we did it justice. Maybe that’ll be 2 stone by the end of the tour!! Gary, we have quickly discovered, likes his food. He is somewhat rotund as proof of that.
So far it’s been fantastic. Wouldn’t have changed a thing.
Come back tomorrow to see how we managed the long ride to Tulsa.
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