At 7 AM my alarm went off. I reluctantly rolled out of bed. I've had more restful night's sleep, but I've also had a lot worse. Oftentimes on motorcycle trips I'm so exhausted that I can't help but sleep like a rock. The previous night was not one of those times.
The room never dropped below 74°F even though the A/C unit ran all night without stopping. When I woke the wall thermostat said it was 75°F. That may have contributed to the poor night's sleep. The bed didn't help either. Again, it wasn't the worst bed I've ever slept on, but it wasn't the greatest either.
Also, due to the warmth of the room I wound up sleeping on top of the covers, which never gives me a real good night's sleep. I think my brain likes the sense of security I get from having at least minimal covers on me, even if it's just a sheet. With the warmth of the room, though, I had the choice of poor sleep due to sleeping on top of the covers, or no sleep due to roasting myself underneath the covers.
A nicer mattress and an A/C unit that works, and this would have been a top-notch hotel in my book. Everything else was great.
The good news is my sunburn from day one hadn't gotten any worse. That meant yesterday's change in how thick I would apply the sunscreen seemed to do the trick. Putting it on thick enough to make you look Scandinavian appears to be the ticket.
Having already showered, all I had to do in preparation was use the restroom, then throw on some clothes and I was ready to head down for breakfast. I usually like to get a hotel that provides breakfast as I'm a big fan of eating breakfast. However, it's always a bit of a mystery from hotel to hotel as to what they consider breakfast. So I wasn't sure what to expect.
When I entered the breakfast area I was pleasantly surprised to see a full buffet. There were tons of options, from waffles to eggs and breakfast meats. For sure I wasn't going to have to make a secondary stop to eat somewhere else.
I was loading up my tray like the pig I am when an older woman with a walker entered the breakfast area. She was alone. She stood there for a moment surveying the buffet line. A younger girl in her late teens/early 20s was waiting for her waffle to cook when she noticed the elderly lady with the walker. The girl asked the woman if she could help her get some food.
The lady with the walker was very appreciative and accepted the help. The girl carried the woman's tray around the breakfast area as the woman picked out what foods she would like to eat. The older woman was struggling to walk even using the walker. There was no way she could have navigated the breakfast buffet alone.
I suddenly felt conflicted. On one hand I was impressed by the graciousness the young girl showed to this woman. She went out of her way to help, while her own waffle sat there getting cold. Watching this display of kindness gave me some hope in humanity.
On the other hand, I was kicking myself. I saw the woman standing there with the walker before the girl did, and in my selfishness to stuff my face it never occurred to me to lend a hand. When the girl offered assistance, I suddenly realized that it should have been me asking the woman if she needed help. I should have recognized the older woman's need immediately. I carried my tray of food to a table and ate, the whole time feeling like the world's biggest ball of slime. To this day I feel bad about not helping. I need to figure out how to be a better person.
True to form, my broken spirit didn't affect my appetite. I stuffed myself pretty good.
With my belly full and my pride shattered, I left the breakfast area and went outside to clean the motorcycle. I walked out the hotel door to the parking lot and immediately noticed it was much more humid than the previous couple days. It had rained during the night. I also noticed that I had neglected to put the little cover over the GPS contacts to protect them from rain. Oops. Hopefully that didn't do anything bad.
I gave the bike a good cleaning and got it all ready for the day's journey.
I went back up to my room and finished packing. I slathered on a good layer of sunscreen, then hauled everything down to the bike. When I was finally ready to go it was around 9 AM. A bit later than I had anticipated.
The plan for today's journey was as follows: ride back roads along the west side of the Mississippi river down to Cape Girardeau, then cross into Illinois and head down to the very tip of the state to a town called Cairo. I planned to have lunch and gas up in Cairo (as you will soon read, this part of the plan turned into folly.) After lunch, I would then ride the southeastern border of Illinois along the Ohio River Scenic Byway. Then I would head east back to Carbondale, IL to spend the night.
After checking out of the hotel I pulled out of the hotel parking lot and headed down the road on highway 61.
I hadn't yet made it out of Arnold when I noticed the GPS seemed to be going wonky again. It kept trying to route me over to take the interstate down to Cape Girardeau, instead of the back roads I had mapped out. I pulled over and attempted to restart the GPS route in the hope that it would recalculate and point me on the roads I had picked out. It didn't, and continued to direct me towards the interstate.
This was disheartening. The previous day, once I got past the first little hurdle it had worked near flawlessly for the rest of the day. I thought I was over all the GPS drama, and now it seemed to have returned. That didn't make me happy.
Fast forward to after I returned home and was able to analyze my route files. I strongly suspect that I had loaded an incorrect KMZ file that had the route from Arnold to St. Louis straight down the interstate. My woes with the GPS this particular morning appear to be user error. However, I wasn't privy to this information at the time. Hindsight is 20/20. But on this particular morning I was blaming the GPS.
I decided to head down the road and hope the GPS would eventually figure out that no matter how much it tried to send me there, I was not going to take the interstate. This meant I needed to navigate the back highways by memory. Later on when I compared the route I actually rode against what I had intended to ride, I didn't do too bad. As we will discuss later, there was one portion where I took a different path between two of the points.
Highway 61 was a nice little road. Some curves and hills, but nothing extreme. Traffic wasn't light nor heavy. And there were a lot of slow-downs for small towns.
As I rode on the back roads, the GPS kept recalculating over and over. It would tell me to turn, and instead I would continue in the direction that I wanted to go. Then it would calculate the next opportunity to send me over to the interstate and repeat the process. Eventually it got so confused that it once again was displaying diagonal lines across the screen that didn't correspond with any actual road.
About an hour down highway 61 I pulled over at a little rest area to take a short break.
This spot had a "scenic overlook" that mostly looked down at a farm. Kind of scenic, but not what I would describe as breathtaking.
There also was an elevation and directional marker at this rest stop.
I continued down highway 61.
I stayed on highway 61 until St. Mary, at which point I started taking smaller, more obscure back roads.
Highway H took me out of the foothills down to a flat area along the river. This flat area was full of cornfields, and the highway often passed down sections where all I could see was tall corn in every direction. The corn was almost right up to the edge of the road on either side, making it feel like I was riding through a narrow valley.
I rode on Highway H until it ended, then I made a small jog and started riding down Highway C.
It was on this stretch that I had a couple minor incidents.
First, there was a railroad crossing. This in itself is fairly unremarkable. I could see a slight rise in the road up to where I would cross the tracks. There was no speed warning, so I maintained the 55-60 mph I had been holding.
As I crossed the tracks, I was surprised to see that the other side did not have the gentle slope down that I was expecting, but instead the road completely dropped out from under me. By the time I realized this there was no time to slow down. I took air and heard my engine rev up as the rear wheel no longer had any friction holding it back.
It happened so fast there was no time to react or panic. I just sat there on the bike as it flew through the air. It felt like several seconds, but in reality it was probably just a fraction of a second. When I was young I wanted to be Evel Knievel. Now here I was unintentionally emulating my boyhood hero.
Then I landed. Hard. The bike came down and bottomed out both the front and rear suspensions. The sound made me cringe, and I immediately slowed down to assess if there was any damage. I couldn't feel anything different with the bike, and frankly even if there was something wrong I was kind of in the middle of nowhere so there was nothing I could do about it here. I decided to press on. If that little stunt broke anything I would deal with it later. Thankfully, I don't think it did.
Not a minute later, as I was cruising around some curves a dog suddenly ran out after me. It appeared very angry that I was intruding in his territory, and appeared to be on a direct path to intercept my front tire.
I swerved and thankfully missed the dog by inches. My heart was racing and I got a huge adrenaline surge. Had I hit the dog it wouldn't have been a pretty outcome for either of us.
A few miles later I came to the town of Brazeau, MO and pulled over for a short rest break. I needed to get off the bike for a few minutes to let my nerves settle.
Brazeau is an interesting little town. When I say little, I mean that quite literally as it's pretty much just an intersection of two insignificant highways. Despite the size, the buildings are fixed up nice and there's a museum and a winery.
It looks like the town's main industry is tourism, but at the same time I can't imagine too many people travel to this location for tourism reasons. The town really is in the middle of nowhere, and isn't on a route between other destinations.
Once I had calmed down a bit, I got back on the bike and continued on highway C.
This is a map of the route I intended to ride from Brazeau to Cape Girardeau. I came really close, but in a moment I'll explain a couple deviations I made by mistake. I'm actually surprised I followed my intended route as close as I did considering at this point the GPS had flat given up and was telling me to "turn left at nowhere". I'm not making that up; that's exactly what the screen said.
As I came through the town of Frohma, MO, I saw some turkey art that made me smile, so I snapped a photo.
When I reached Altenburg, there was a junction. My memory made me think I was supposed to turn right at the junction, but I decided to stop and double check via the map on my phone. Cell service was pretty spotty in this area so the phone was running slow.
My hunch was correct. I turned right at the junction.
Throughout the morning there were plenty of spots where people were mowing the ditch and blowing the clippings onto the highway. This can be very dangerous to motorcycles, especially in the curves. Grass clippings don't provide much traction (it's basically wet grass) so it's easy to low-side the motorcycle if you're not careful. I didn't have any issues, but I wasn't happy about all the grass clippings on the road. This photo was one of the more benign infractions I saw.
Near New Wells, MO, I came across highway CC. My gut told me that I should head south on this road, so I turned. I rode about a mile, but the highway seemed a little more "back road" than I thought it should be. It was narrow and didn't look oft traveled. I decided I probably had made a wrong turn, so I turned around and headed back towards highway C.
Back on highway C I continued west.
As it turns out, highway CC was the correct route, and I should not have turned around. Instead, I found myself all the way back at highway 61, which was much farther west than I wanted to be. Oops.
Here's a map of the actual route I rode:
As I pulled onto highway 177 I rode past a big sign warning me that the road was closed ahead. Back when I was creating my route I had noted that a bridge was out on the northeast side of Cape Giradeau. I was currently about 22 miles from this bridge, which seemed like it was a little soon for a big road closed sign. I pulled over for a moment to check my phone and see if this was a new closure, or the one I already knew about.
I didn't get a straight answer to my question. However, the map showed plenty of little roads around the area so I decided to forge ahead. If I hit a different closure than the one I expected, then I could take one of these back roads and find a new route.
As it turned out, the road closed sign did pertain to the bridge being out 22 miles away in Cape Girardeau. I passed a few other signs on the way. I guess the Missouri DOT really didn't want anyone to miss the fact that the bridge was closed.
I rode past all the "road closed" signs until I came to a spot just north of the bridge being reconstructed. On the route that I had planned weeks ago I had a nice, easy little detour around the construction area. Unfortunately, the GPS was useless, and my memory of the exact roads to take was a bit spotty. I decided I was going to have to improvise. I turned west on highway 634.
As it turned out, I didn't remember the detour real well. The good news is, this was a very pretty area.
I rode around the back roads for a few minutes, and turned around at least once when I realized I was heading in the wrong direction.
This actually would be a cool area to explore if I lived closer. But today, I had an agenda and riding around these little side roads wasn't on it.
Eventually I found my way back to highway 177, and as a bonus I rejoined south of the bridge construction. So I was back on track. Kinda sorta.
My original route had me staying on 177 when it jogged to the east, and then turning left onto Sprigg Street. I accidentally went straight at the jog. It wasn't a bad little detour, though, as I got to see a cool part of Cape Girardeau on old Main street by the river.
It was around this time when I noticed the GPS had finally sorted things out and was now working properly. In fact, from this point on in the trip it worked flawlessly.
I saw the Cape Girardeau city hall building:
On the southeast side of the city I crossed the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge over the Mississippi river and into Illinois. I didn't find a good place to pull over and get a picture, so I snagged one off the internet:
On the other side of the bridge I did pull over to get a picture. But my picture isn't as spectacular as the one I took from Google images.
Next stop (or so I thought) was Cairo, IL and some lunch. I was getting pretty hungry.
As I entered Illinois, I noticed there was an abundance of strip joints and porn shops. I'm guessing they weren't allowed on the Missouri side of Cape Girardeau?
It was getting extremely hot and humid at this point. Even when riding on the highway the heat was feeling oppressive. I was looking forward to relaxing in some A/C for a few minutes while I ate lunch.
On the map I saw a Subway in Cairo. After the heavy breakfast I had I thought that may be a sensible choice. While I was hungry, I didn't need food as much as I needed a break from the motorcycle and some cool air.
From Cape Girardeau to Cairo was about 30 miles. It felt like twice that, however. I was relieved when I finally arrived.
Here's where the story gets interesting. As I rode through the town (which wasn't insignificant in size at about 3 miles long) it seemed very quiet. I didn't think much of it at first.
I found the Subway, but it was closed. Well, bummer. I decided I would have to find somewhere else in Cairo to eat.
I wound up riding through the entire town until I got to the very south end of Cairo, which is also the very southern tip of Illinois. From here you have a choice: cross the Mississippi river into Missouri, or cross the Ohio River into Kentucky.
I wanted to do neither, so I turned around and pulled over to weigh my options. On the way in as I rode through the town it struck me that nearly every business I went past was closed. In fact, the only businesses I noticed were open were a Dollar General, and a bank that I assumed was open because I saw a car in the drive-through.
It was weird. Later on after my trip I did some Googling and discovered that Cairo is a modern-day ghost town. In fact, there are many web pages dedicated to pictures of Cairo, both in its heyday and now in its decline. I wound up doing a lot of interesting reading about the city of Cairo.
Had I known, I would have taken more photos. Instead, I'll treat you to some more pictures I stole off of Google images:
In addition to wanting some food and some A/C, I also was in dire need of gasoline. I used the fancy "find a gas station" feature on the GPS. It only listed one station in Cairo, on the main street near the north end of town. I reasoned I must have ridden by it on the way in without noticing. I pulled back out onto main street heading in the opposite direction from the way I entered. This time I paid more attention to the abandoned state of the city.
How Cairo got to this state of abandonment is rather interesting. It was once a booming city of over 20,000 people. Prior to the Civil War, it found itself geographically located between two slave states. As a result, Cairo was a main route used by the Underground Railroad for African Americans fleeing slavery from both Missouri and Kentucky.
In fact, in the book "Huckleberry Finn'' by Mark Twain, Huck was helping Jim to escape and the plan was for them to take a raft down the Mississippi to Cairo. Unfortunately for them (and especially Jim) they accidentally floated past Cairo.
Slaves would entered into Cairo to discover they now had their freedom, but little else in the way of possessions or opportunity. Not having anywhere else to go, many of these former slaves settled in the Cairo area. As a result, the racial demographics of Cairo were quite different compared to the rest of the state of Illinois.
Despite being a free state, this demographic disproportion led to high racial tensions that continued to grow for nearly 100 years until they came to a head in the 1960s. In 1967 a probable lynching occurred that resulted in race riots, with buildings in Cairo being damaged or destroyed. These riots further divided the community, and the violence continued to grow over the next few years. Because of the continuous violence, many residents packed up and left Cairo.
In the coming years further hardships hit the city. The creation of the Interstate Highway system meant that travelers were now bypassing Cairo on Interstate 57, rather than driving through the town. In the 1980s, Amtrak changed its route so there was no longer a stop in Cairo, bringing fewer visitors. Major employers shut down leaving many residents without a source of income.
It seemed the final nail in Cairo's coffin was the 2011 flood. Cairo is the lowest point in the state of Illinois, which is problematic considering its proximity to two major rivers. The Mississippi overflowed its banks and flooded much of the city of Cairo. The residents had to evacuate, and the total loss of property meant that a significant portion of those who fled never returned.
At the time of my visit, the population of Cairo had dwindled from over 20,00 residents down to around 1,500. The city population was now 7% of what it once had been.
The GPS guided me to the gas station. At least it guided me to what used to be the gas station. It didn't look like it had been open for quite a while. The gas pumps were gone and the windows were barred and boarded. Vegetation was starting to take over.
My gas level was starting to get extremely low. Not so bad that I was going to panic, but low enough that I had concern, especially since the one gas station in the area was shut down. The GPS said the next closest gas station was 7 miles up the road in Mound City. That happened to be right on the route that I had planned, so at least I didn't have to go out of my way. Hopefully that station was still open.
I left Cairo and took off on the second leg of the day's journey without my lunch or a rest break. I was more concerned about the latter than the former. The heat was oppressive enough that it was starting to kill my appetite.
When I reached Mound City I found the "Cut Mart" gas station. I'm not going to speculate as to why it was named that, but you can let your imagination run wild. I pulled up to a pump. Immediately the proprietor came out and said he only had one pump that worked, which he directed me towards. So I spun the bike around and pulled up at the functional pump.
The station owner must have known he had a monopoly on gas in the area. The price was $5.75 a gallon for the cheap stuff. Thankfully my bike only took five gallons to fill, so I didn't have to raid my son's college fund to top off the tank. But I can only imagine people living in this town must try to purchase gas elsewhere.
With the tank full, I moved the motorcycle away from the pump so it would be available to anyone else wanting to drain their bank account. Then I went inside for a restroom and snack break.
As I walked into the store I must have looked like a sweaty mess, because a man who was leaving immediately commented on my drenched appearance. He was laughing at me. I'm glad I could amuse him. "I'm funny how? Funny like a clown?"
Really not caring about his opinion, I found my way to the restroom which looked like it hadn't been cleaned since Cairo was a boomtown. I did my best to take care of my business without touching anything, and then scrubbed my hands really well. However there were no paper towels so now my hands were just as wet as the rest of my body.
I went to the cooler and pulled out a quart of Gatorade and a quart of water. I decided I was too hot to want to eat anything, I just wanted liquid. Walking to the counter the guy rang it up and the two drinks came to more than eight bucks. I was too thirsty to protest so I handed him some cash.
I immediately chugged the Gatorade as I stood in the air conditioning for another precious minute. It tasted wonderful. I decided to save the water for the road.
Back outside I wanted to re-appy sunscreen before I left. Ideally I would have gone back inside and done it where it was cooler, but the proprietor was giving off this weird vibe and I didn't feel particularly welcome. I settled for finding a semi-shady spot by the gas pump as I rubbed the sunscreen all over me. Having been sitting in my bag all day, the sunscreen was hot. Yuck.
Before I hit the road I tried to check my phone for messages only to discover it had died. I didn't know if my battery had drained completely, or if the thermal protection shut the phone down. Either way, all I had was a black screen. Well, that's not good. Hope there's not another emergency at home.
I started down the road following the Ohio River Scenic Byway.
As I was riding along I suddenly got a tornado warning on the GPS. This was odd, considering that it was very sunny where I was riding. I looked at the details on the warning and saw that the storm was closer to Evansville, IN, which was about 120 miles away. I was heading in that general direction, but right now it didn't seem like anything I needed to worry about. Hopefully by the time I got near that area the storm would pass. But I thought it was cool that the GPS would warn me about such situations.
The Byway was nice, but not quite as nice as I had hoped. One odd thing I noticed was that despite having "Ohio River" in its name, the river was nowhere to be seen.
The Byway goes through a lot of little towns and has many turns. It's not a route you would want to ride if you're in a hurry.
A few miles from the town of Metropolis my GPS indicated that I had received a text. That was weird. I thought my phone battery had died or it had a thermal shut down. Obviously the phone was powered up and working, at least to some degree. That was even more concerning, as I started to wonder if my screen had broken.
It's interesting that twelve years ago I was taking trips without a cell phone of any kind, and now I was trying to figure out how I would finish the trip without one. As I rode I worked out the details in my head about how to make it home without a phone. My biggest concern was my hotel reservations were on the phone. I finally decided that I couldn't have been the first person to ever have their phone die, so it may be inconvenient but I would figure out a way to get things done.
As I arrived at the town of Metropolis, their city sign said "Home of Superman." I thought that was amusing so I spun around and rode back to get a picture of my motorcycle near the sign.
I got off the bike and started thinking about my phone. I took off my sunglasses and then realized that if I shaded the screen I could just barely make out the screen display. I figured out that somehow the brightness on the screen had gotten dropped all the way to zero, and that's why the screen wasn't working. I turned the brightness back up and immediately my phone was usable again. Minor crisis averted.
As I rode through town I saw a sign for "Superman Statue" with an arrow pointing to the right. I guess they take their town name seriously here. I decided that was a worthwhile detour. On the way to the statue I came across a Big Boy statue done up like Superman.
The statue was in front of the Metropolis City Hall. People were parking and then going to have their picture taken in front of it. I decided there wasn't much benefit to me parking, so I just quick snapped a picture while I sat on the bike and then resumed my ride.
As I was leaving town a guy quickly backed out of a parking space without looking and nearly ran into me. As I rode around him I gave him the stinkeye because I don't take too kindly to people running down motorcyclists due to inattention.
I then made a turn and noticed that the guy made the same turn. "Great," I thought. "I wonder if he's following me because I gave him the stinkeye." I made a few more turns and rode around the block to see if he was indeed following me, but he was not. That was a relief. I was too hot and tired to try and diffuse a confrontation.
I continued down the Scenic Byway. My GPS had my arrival at the hotel around 6:30 PM. I kept looking at that time hoping that it would magically drift downward. I was getting pretty tired, primarily because of the heat. I was debating in my mind on stopping if I came across something like a McDonalds. I could use the break, but at the same time I didn't want to extend the ride further into the evening if I didn't have to. My late departure from the hotel that morning was coming back to bite me.
I made a turn on my route that was supposed to take me down through the Kincaid Mounds State Historic Site. I don't know what these are, but I saw them on Google Maps when I was creating my route so I figured if they were noteworthy enough for Google, they were worth my time to go see them. Unfortunately, about a mile down this highway the road suddenly turned to gravel. I came to a stop to reassess the situation.
I really don't care to ride on gravel if I don't need to do so. I decided to turn around and modify my route slightly to keep me on paved roads.
The road was very narrow. Too narrow for me to just pull a U-turn. So I backed the bike up as I turned the bike so I could do a three point turn to head the other direction.
As I was backing the bike I suddenly felt the rear wheel drop into the ditch. The weeds were really high and were hiding how steep the drop into the ditch was. I immediately gunned the engine forward as the wheel spun trying to grab traction against the lip of the road. After a couple seconds the bike slowly inched forward and out of the ditch.
That could have been very catastrophic to my trip. Had I gone another inch or two backwards into the ditch I would have hung the bike up on the frame and there wouldn't have been anything for the tire to grab onto to get me out. It would have just been spinning in the air. At that point, I couldn't have gotten off the bike without laying it down, and once it was laying sideways in the ditch I don't think it was coming out of the steep incline without a winch. Plus, down this lonely road there was probably nobody coming along I could flag down for help.
As I turned back up the road I tried to put out of my mind how close I had just come to doing something extremely stupid.
I rode back north to Highway 6, then headed east towards New Liberty, IL. My plan was to re-join my original planned route in New Liberty. It wasn't too far out of the way (in fact, it was actually a shorter route than what I had planned.) Plus, this would keep me off the gravel. Or so I thought…
Less than two miles down the road I suddenly came to a bridge closure. The road had a large barrier stopping traffic from continuing over the bridge. There wasn't any construction activity currently happening. There were a few piles of rock on either side of the bridge.
I sat there for a moment evaluating the situation. I didn't recall seeing a detour sign. There aren't a whole lot of other road options in this area of Illinois. I wasn't sure why the bridge was closed, whether it was just for some minor maintenance or if it was on the verge of collapse?
I came really close to just riding around the road closed sign and crossing the bridge. I finally decided to listen to the sign. With my luck the bridge would have fallen apart right when I was crossing.
I turned around and started riding back the way I had come, searching for a detour sign I may have missed. I was really hoping I wouldn't have to ride all the way back to Unionville.
About a mile west of the bridge closure, sure enough I came across a nondescript detour sign I had missed. I turned north onto the detour route and was immediately disheartened to discover that it was gravel. Yuck.
I proceeded carefully down the road, hoping that the detour wasn't that long and I would soon be routed back to the highway. Unfortunately, the condition of the gravel road got worse and worse the further I went. Lots of deep, loose rock and washboarded surface.
I precariously rode along at a slow speed. My loathing for the Illinois DOT grew as the yards slowly rolled by. My grumbling initially started just in my head, but quickly grew audible. At one point the road had gotten so treacherous that I started yelling out loud at whoever made the decision to route traffic on this horrible section of back road. I'm sure if anyone saw me as I rode by I appeared to be a crazy man. I suppose I was a crazy man at this moment in time.
I had a couple close calls, but kept the bike upright. The total distance of the gravel detour was about 5 miles, but because I had to ride so slowly it took me nearly 15 minutes until I was finally back on pavement. The detour ended just north of New Liberty, IL.
I continued north on the Ohio River Scenic Byway. Finally, about 70 miles from the beginning of the Byway, I caught a glimpse of the river that is its namesake:
This area of Illinois is pretty rural. There wasn't much in the way of other traffic, or any other intersecting highways.
Here was the route I had planned to ride for the remainder of the day. I was intending to take the byway almost to its end, and then head back west and spend the night in Carbondale.
However, Mother Nature had other ideas. Earlier I had received the tornado warning on my GPS. I was now approaching the area of the state where that storm was located near Golconda, IL. The clouds in the distance were looking pretty menacing, and I could see lightning.
I pulled over to check the radar and evaluate my plans. The day had been brutally hot, and with the humidity the weather was ripe for a big storm. As I sat there thinking about the situation, the wind came up. I could see more lightning and hear the thunder, and the storm that had looked quite a ways away now looked considerably closer.
Some may scoff at me and feel I should have just sucked it up, put on my rain gear and forged ahead with my original route. Part of my brain was telling me the exact same thing. However, another part of my brain remembers some of the harrowing storms I have ridden through in the past, and in the midst of those storms regretted that I had done so.
This was my trip. Nobody had any expectations of the route I was riding except for me. I decided that I would enjoy myself more if I made a change in my course to avoid the storm. I punched the address of the hotel into the GPS and had it calculate the shortest route between there and where I currently was.
I took off quickly as the storm seemed to be moving fast. I had to ride toward the storm until a couple miles further up the road where the GPS told me to turn left on a road which hoped would take me west and out of the path of the storm.
This road, while paved, was just one step above a gravel road. It was pitted and patched and narrow. Weeds were growing out of the cracks in the pavement. There were no shoulders. For a few minutes I thought the GPS had taken me down someone's long driveway.
Unfortunately, the road turned and I found myself heading straight into the storm again. More concerning was the temperature suddenly dropped very noticeably, at least 20 degrees. My brain suddenly said, "Nope. Not doing this." I whipped the bike around and headed back in the direction I came.
I opened the throttle and quickly retraced my steps. My hope was the GPS would see that I've turned around and calculate a different route to Carbondale, preferably one that wasn't on a collision course with the storm. I got back to the Byway and started heading back in the direction of New Liberty.
Sure enough, the GPS recalculated and directed me to a side road about five miles south. "Weird," I thought. I don't remember seeing an intersection in that area when I rode through it the first time.
When I got to the place where the GPS was telling me to turn, I realized why I hadn't seen a road previously: there wasn't one. There was a dirt path that made gravel look like a better choice. Nope, not going down this road either.
I realized I was probably going to have to ride backwards down the Ohio River Scenic Byway all 30 miles until I reached Interstate 24 near Metropolis. I decided that was a better option than trying to endure the storm that was on my heels. I opened the throttle even further. I figured if I got pulled over for speeding I could at least ride out the storm while sitting in the Highway Patrol car.
As I rode, I felt the air temperature get hot again. That was good news, as it meant I was gaining on the storm. Perhaps I would be able to outrun it all the way to New Liberty, and then when the road turned west I could get out of its path?
Ahh yes… New Liberty. That's where that wretched gravel detour was. Not only was it terrible to ride through once, now I was going to have to ride through it a second time.
As I rode I had another mental debate on whether or not I wanted to ignore the road closed signs and ride over the bridge. Knowing how awful the detour was really strengthened the argument to risk the bridge crossing.
For whatever reason, I made the choice to ride the gravel detour a second time. I thought maybe since I had been on it once already, the second time would be better? I was wrong. It was probably a little worse the second time as now I was trying to beat a storm and ride even faster through the loose gravel. Once again, there was a great deal of audible denigration of the Illinois DOT as I fought to keep the bike upright.
I retraced my route all the way back to the interstate. I could hear thunder and start to smell the rain. I accepted the fact that there wasn't any way I was going to completely avoid the storm, but it did look like my evasive maneuvers would keep me from taking the brunt of the worst part of it.
I decided it would be a lot easier to put my rain gear on now before it started raining, and before I got on the interstate. Having rain gear but not wearing it when it starts to rain didn't seem to make sense. I mean, getting caught in a surprise storm is one thing, but I'd now been running from this storm for nearly forty-five minutes. Once I was on the interstate it would become more difficult to find a safe place to pull over.
I saw a little side road with a big shoulder area and I decided that would be an opportune place to pull over and don my rain gear. No sooner did I get off the bike and start dressing myself when a guy in a truck pulled up, rolled down his window and said, "I just came off the interstate. You're going to get wet." Thank you for the helpful advice.
I had bought new rain gear prior to the previous year's motorcycle trip but had not yet had a chance to wear it, at least in an actual rain situation. I put it on once right after I got it just to make sure it fit. In addition to a jacket and pants, I also bought boot covers to try and keep my feet from getting soaked. It was a little bit of a puzzle trying to figure out the correct order to put things on. I realized you have to put them on like roof shingles; from the bottom up. That way each layer overlaps the layer below.
It took me a good 20 minutes or more to get the rain gear on and adjusted. The rain still hadn't started to fall, but the thunder kept reminding me it was on the way. With the rain gear donned but the rain not yet falling, I realized the waterproof suit was extremely warm. The air temp was still in the upper 90s, and now I was wearing an extra layer of non-breathable material.
Now, remember way back on day one when I mentioned my recent issues with chronic diarrhea? Here's where it comes into play. In the midst of my panic to get my rain gear on, a sudden, more urgent need presented itself. I needed to use the restroom in a rather pronounced fashion. Unfortunately, there was nowhere in the immediate area to provide the facilities needed.
I suppose I could have gone into caveman mode and just used the ditch. There were two hindrances I immediately recognized. First, that would violate basic social constructs which I like to think I'm evolved enough to follow. Second, and most importantly, I didn't have any toilet paper available and I don't think leaves and grass would do an adequate job mopping up what I needed to do. All things considered, I decided to try and hold it for the time being.
Holding back the floodgates of your bowels gets pretty painful. At least it was a different pain to focus on for a while which distracted me from the pain in my left shoulder.
I hopped back on the bike and took off quickly, hoping that air movement would keep me from getting soaked in sweat and defeating the purpose of wearing rain gear. I also tried not to imagine what would happen if I lost the diarrhea battle while wearing waterproof clothing.
As I made the right turn onto the interstate I hit a giant tar snake that had come out of the crack it was supposed to fill. Both wheels broke traction and started to slide on the pavement. Miraculously, they regained traction and I didn't go down. But it sure gave me an adrenaline rush. That was a seriously close call.
When I reached the bottom of the interstate on-ramp I discovered the pavement was in the middle of a resurfacing project, where they peel the top couple of inches off material off the road and then replace it. Unfortunately, they hadn't gotten to the replacement part of the project yet, and that resulted in a horrible grooved surface.
This had me worried. Roads that are being resurfaced don't provide a whole lot of traction for motorcycles when it's dry. If it starts to rain it's going to turn into a Slip 'N Slide. I started to wonder if there was an alternate highway that would get me to Carbondale on a better surface?
Much to my relief, a few miles up the road the construction project ended and the pavement returned to its normal state. And just in time, as this was also about when it started to rain.
The rain came down steady, but thankfully not heavy. Visibility got difficult as my windshield became covered in water drops, making it difficult to see through. However, if I got my face too far above the windshield then the rain was painfully pelting me, also making it difficult to see. I tried to position my head so I was just peering over the top of the shield.
When putting my rain gear on I had forgetfully neglected one key item: gloves. Gloves weren't needed because of the temperature, but because it felt like my hands were getting stabbed with needles. Raindrops at highway speeds aren't the soft benign drops that we remember playing in as children. It can feel like you're being treated by an over-achieving acupuncturist.
I tolerated the discomfort all the way to the next exit ramp, then pulled over and dug my gloves out of my saddlebag. Back on the interstate with hand protection I found things much more tolerable. In fact, it was almost enjoyable as I was covered in a protective cocoon. Everything around me was wet, yet I was dry. Well, mostly dry. My face was still exposed and therefore soaked.
My hasty retreat an hour prior had worked. I only had to ride through about 15 miles of rain, and didn't get any of the wind or lightning the worst part of the storm was producing. Soon the road was dry again. The clouds still looked like they could produce more rain, so I wound up leaving the rain gear on all the way to Carbondale even though outside of a couple of sprinkles I didn't encounter any more precipitation.
My earlier dire need for the restroom had mostly subsided. The need was still there, it just wasn't at the same level it had been earlier. I decided to continue pushing onward (no pun intended) to try and make it to the hotel before I desecrated a bathroom. If I could make it there, at least I would be the only person who would have to deal with the odiferous results.
Interstate 24 merged with Interstate 57. I wound up riding on the interstate for 47 miles. I hadn't planned on riding on any interstates on this day, but the storm changed those plans.
On highway 13 I headed west towards Carbondale. This was a slower moving road with lots of traffic and stoplights. Also the heat of the day returned, and I was roasting inside my rain gear. However, by this point I was too tired and unmotivated to pull over and take it all off. I just wanted to get to the hotel.
The last 15 miles crept by about as slow as any I can remember. The heat of the day combined with hunger, body pain, intestinal pressure and the various moments of excitement had taken their toll, and I was pretty much spent.
I finally made it to Carbondale. My hotel was on the far west side. As I rode through the town I was surprised by how large it was. On the map it really didn't look very big, but in real life it was quite spread out. As I rode through I noted various restaurants that might provide some supper. But first I wanted to get to the hotel, take my rain gear off and relax in some air conditioning.
I was riding along when the GPS suddenly told me to turn around because I had missed the hotel. That was weird. I had been watching for the hotel but didn't see any signs. I turned around and then figured out that the sign for the hotel had been destroyed. How it got destroyed, I am unsure.
Later on when I would re-read the reviews on this property several people also mentioned that they drove past the hotel due to the poor signage. So apparently it had been a problem for a while.
I pulled up to the main entrance of the hotel. Frankly, from outward appearances I was less than impressed. But I only needed somewhere to crash for the night and at this point I wasn't too picky.
I walked into the lobby and up to the front desk. The guy behind the desk was interesting. He seemed nice enough, but he was moving very slowly and seemed to be thinking hard about fairly simple things. I have no hard evidence, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if he had just smoked a whole bag of weed.
The first thing he did was hand me two bottles of water. I'm not sure if he does that for everyone, or if I just looked in a bad enough state that he felt I he should give me some. I didn't really care, as I was powerfully thirsty. I cracked one open and guzzled it completely. I decided I would drink the second bottle once I was in my room.
The guy struggled for quite a while trying to figure out the computer, and find my reservation. While he was poking around on the keyboard, I decided to use the time to take off my rain gear. The jacket came off easy. The pants put up a fight.
I first began slowly trying to extract myself from the rain pants, but soon in my frustration I was thrashing around trying to figure out how to get them off. I couldn't get them past my boots, which is weird because they went on over the boots and covers without too much effort. Finally, after a few minutes of fighting them I realized that the pant legs were still zipped. I unzipped them, and then they came off easily. I must have been really tired to not figure this out from the get-go.
The guy behind the counter seemed oblivious to my antics. He just kept staring and tapping at the computer and looked completely befuddled.
I stood, and stood, and stood. My need for the bathroom was still present, and the gymnastics I had performed trying to remove my rain gear had reinvigorated the percolating happening in my lower tract.
Finally the guy gave up. "I'm just going to give you a room," he said, "I just have to make sure it's not already being used. Having said this, he disappeared out the office door and down the hallway.
I leaned over and watched him through the doorway as he walked all the way to the end of the hall, inserted a key in a door and then looked inside. He came back and said, "Yep, that room is empty," and handed me the key. Okay… that was interesting.
He told me to park at the end of the building and come in the back door, as my room was right there at the end. He also spent a couple minutes trying to convince me to eat at the restaurant attached to the hotel.
I finally gathered up all my stuff and made it back out to the motorcycle. All in all it took 25 minutes for him to check me in. Yikes.
I rode down to the end of the building and found a parking spot. Actually, it wasn't hard to find a spot as the lot was pretty empty. Then I got a better look at the condition of the hotel. It wasn't promising. There was caution tape in places, and another wing of the hotel that looked like it would have been right at home back at the Cairo ghost town.
Out of curiosity, I glanced around the back side of the hotel. It was filled with debris and more decrepit buildings. My camera angle actually didn't capture the worst of it. I kind of feel sorry for anyone who stays on the back side of the hotel as they wouldn't have much of an appealing view.
I went inside the building and found my room was literally a foot from the exterior entrance. I opened the door and was greeted with the stench of cigarettes. The door to the room said "no smoking" but this rule had obviously been ignored for years. Yuck.
To be honest, the above photos weren't taken on my way into the hotel. I came back a few minutes later and snapped them. What happened chronologically was that I made it inside the room as fast as possible and immediately used the bathroom. After holding things in for a couple of hours, what I did was bad. I'm surprised the EPA didn't show up to address the environmental hazard I created.
With that situation addressed, I was able to better assess the amenities. The room was a bit warm. I immediately turned down the A/C unit hoping that would help. Then I surveyed the situation. I think it's fair to say that the hotel room was nasty. Probably among the worst I've ever stayed in.
The bed was made, but it looked like someone rolled around on top of the covers afterwards. There were lots of bugs crawling on things. The metal door frames were rusting. There was mold in the bathroom. Somebody had done something extremely foul in there. Wait… that last one was on me.
None of it was appealing, but the most concerning thing was the bugs. I started to analyze the creepy crawlers to figure out what I was dealing with. Mostly ants. As near as I could tell there weren't any bedbugs or roaches. And one saving grace was the room had vinyl flooring (no carpet) which I think helped with the bug situation, as at least it made them easily visible and I didn't have to wonder what else was lurking in the shag.
On most any other day I would have packed up, demanded a refund and found somewhere else to stay. On this day, however, I was so wiped out I decided to share the space with the insects. I put all my gear and clothes up on top of the desk, which for the most part was bug free. I didn't want to leave anything on the floor and risk bringing new friends home with me.
Much to my dismay, the air conditioner did very little other than create a lot of racket. It never did cool the room down.
Usually I try to do my research on hotel rooms. I definitely missed the mark on this one. Later on when I returned I started doing more research into reviews of this hotel. Many people experienced the exact same things I did: complaints of the staff being on drugs, long check-in times, the staff opening the door to rooms to see if they're occupied, bugs, A/C not working, etc.
Yet hiding these negative (but truthful) reviews were scores of glowingly positive reviews. After staying in this hotel I am convinced that these reviews are paid shills, or bots. There is no way even the most positive real-life person could stay in this hotel and give it a "10" rating.
I wanted a shower. I wanted food. But apparently more than that I wanted to sit and relax. I found "Forrest Gump" on the TV and sat on the questionable couch and watched TV for at least an hour. Occasionally I would brush an insect off of me. I kept thinking that I should do something productive, but I couldn't get motivated enough to move.
After a while my hunger grew strong enough to cause me to move. I had not eaten anything since breakfast. However I was in that weird state we get when we're overheated and tired: I was starving hungry, yet nothing sounded overly appealing. I thought about just wandering down to the restaurant attached to the hotel, but after seeing the condition of the rooms I decided I didn't need to add salmonella to my list of grievances.
On the way through town I passed a "Captain D's Seafood" restaurant. This is far from an exotic dining experience, and certainly not a local restaurant like I try to frequent. However, it sounded kind of good, and we don't have a seafood place back home in Sioux Falls. I'm not a huge fish guy, but every once in a while I do get a hankering. I'm not sure if the hankering was for fish or for any substance breaded, fried and served with tartar sauce, but either way it was a hankering.
I climbed back on the bike and rode through town to where I remember seeing the Captain D's. I went by a park and there was some sort of festival happening. I could hear the live music as I rode by.
I found the Captain D's and pulled in. When I tried to open the door to the building it was locked. That was odd, as I could see people inside. I walked around to another door to see if it was open and was met by an employee coming out.
He told me the lobby was closed due to a staffing shortage, but said the drive through was open. I explained that I'm on a motorcycle and going through the drive through isn't usually a great experience. He basically acknowledged that I wasn't going to eat any Captain D's that night.
Well, that threw a wrench in my plans. It took me a while to decide on Captain D's, so now what? As I thought about it, I remember passing a Long John Silver's on the west side of town when I first came in. Captain D's and LJS are pretty much the same thing, so I decided that was an adequate substitute. I could still get breaded and fried stuff with tartar sauce.
I rode a few miles over to the LJS only to find the building dark and empty. Hmmmm….
At this point I decided I couldn't be too picky, and that any food would probably do. There was a mall across the street from the LJS, so I rode over there. Out in front was a deli that looked interesting. But it was closed too. I'm sensing a theme here.
Over on the corner of the mall I found a place called "Mod Pizza". I knew nothing about Mod Pizza, but they were open and I saw people inside eating. I decided that was enough reason to stop here for dinner. I parked and went inside.
Other than the name indicating they sell pizza, I had no idea what to expect. I got in line and noticed it's one of those "build your own pizza" places. That's cool. I really liked the similar restaurant we had in Sioux Falls before it closed.
When it was my turn I loaded my pzza up. One problem with having an eclectic palette is that every topping looks good to me. As a result I tend to overload my pizzas with too many ingredients. I guess too many pizza toppings is a good problem to have.
It was delicious and really hit the spot. By the time I finished eating it was dark outside. I headed back in the direction of the hotel.
I decided that even though I was really tired, I should probably stop and top off the gas tank before I went back to the hotel. I found a gas station and pulled in.
While I was filling the tank I noticed a police officer sitting his car which was parked in a dark corner nearby. It wasn't immediately visible to the casual passerby. It made me wonder what was going on? Nothing happened during my brief visit.
I entered my gas stop information on the piece of paper I use as my log sheet. I decided it would be bad if I lost this sheet ( like I did in 2019) so I snapped a picture as a backup.
On my way back to the hotel I saw that the festival in the park was still going strong. It looked like a different artist was playing music compared to earlier. I was tempted to park and go visit the festival, but I was completely wiped-out tired. I opted to just get back to the crappy hotel and call it a night.
Back in my room Forrest Gump was still on TV. I called my wife and chatted with her for a while. As we were talking, suddenly the hotel room door opened. It was the front desk guy, and I'm assuming he was looking for an empty room for another guest. He quickly backed out of the room and closed the door. I shouldn't have been amazed that he was unable to remember which rooms he had rented out, even though there were only a few cars in the parking lot.
I tried to lock the door the best I could from the inside. I really didn't want him barging in during the night while I'm trying to sleep.
After my phone call I took a cool shower and got ready for bed. The A/C wasn't winning the fight against the heat and humidity, but the shower helped me feel a little better.
As I crawled into the bed, which I strongly suspect had used bedding in it, I was actually surprised to discover that the mattress was remarkably comfortable. It was easily the most comfortable mattress of the entire trip.
Return To The Main Motorcycle Gallery
This page last updated on 11/03/2022