Tripping Back

We left Elgin this morning, leaving behind a tearful Muzzie and a disinterested dog. (everybody else was gone to work/school already, except for Kaira who is sick and was huddled up in her bed sleeping) The weather was perfect for a change. Not too hot, not too cold, sunny and not too humid. When we left, that is. But how nice it was while it lasted!

Our rumps are not used to the seats anymore and so we stopped every hour or so, and as the day wore on, it got warmer and more humid. It would not have been so bad if we had not been slowed by line painting and road construction. The line painting was the worst because it happened in the afternoon, right in the humid heat of the day. We don't know how hot it was, but it was hot rolling along at 10-12 mph for many miles. And at the end of the line painting the road was blocked by a huge hole in the street. So we made a little detour but found the gas station anyway. The one decent set of curves we saw all day was in this line painting section. Any time there's a decent curve, they stick a town in it and set the speed limit at 25 or 30. Anyone who rides knows this is a bad thing to do. We do not appreciate what Illinois does with the curves.

We got good gas mileage today. Ray got 55 mpg and I got 40 mpg. Not so bad and we only filled up twice.

The little motel here in Nauvoo, Illinois is cute, but the innkeepers are 3 blocks away. Kinda funny. There are quite a few people here as this is the least expensive place in town. There's a couple from Spokane here too. They've just come from WA and are heading to Indiana. We are the only motorcycles. Our room is small but big enough that we can store all the "stuff" and still have room to walk around.

We decided to have a sandwich at the Old Mill Bakery for supper, only a block away so we walked. But they are closed at 5 pm. We walked on into "downtown" and found that both the Hotel Nauvoo dining room and the Grandpa John's diner closed early too. There is only one restaurant in town that's open on Monday evening, Dottie's bar and grill. It was either that or gas station pizza, so we opted for the bar. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't memorable either. It was a meal. Tomorrow is Taco Tuesday, so who knows, we may end up back there. On the way back to the motel we stopped by the little grocery store and bought a 7 up so I don't have to drink my cranberry juice straight up. It was nearly dark by the time we got back and believe me, the streets in this town were rolled up tight.

Today we passed miles and miles and miles (about 240 miles) of corn and soybeans, soybeans and corn. For those who have not traveled in the Midwest, corn grows tall. Very tall. Sitting on the seat of a motorcycle with corn growing on both sides means you see (surprise!) CORN. That's all you see. At least the soybeans grow low so then you can see for miles and miles across the fields. And if you happen on a little hill with soybeans planted, you can see nearly forever. There's nothing there but corn and soybeans and farmhouses, but man, you can see 'em all. So we saw corn and road kill, smelled stock/dairy farms (ick) new mown hay (aaah!) and one squashed skunk whose fragrance lingered long after his/her demise.

Roads in the Illinois farm country tend toward the straight. Very straight. Ruler straight. Corn row straight. Then all of a sudden and for no apparent reason the road takes a left or right hand turn. Then it's back to straight until the next 90 degree corner in the road. One time, we decided we made all those turns just so we could get a good look at the little town.

Illinois farm towns tend toward the small. Like 350-500 people. The ones that have 1200 or more are considered the Big City. Those ones often have fast foods and some national chain stores. But the little ones usually don't have anything. At around 5 or 600 you start to get stores and maybe a gas station and a John Deere store. No restaurants. Most of the houses in the towns date from around the turn of the century with perhaps a few post WW2 houses. Those old homes are grand indeed sometimes. You can tell how prosperous a town is by the paint on (or off) the houses. Most of the little towns are only a block or two deep. I don't know how people live there with so few options in town but I can tell you that if you yearn for the small town life, you can find lots of small to medium towns in rural Illinois. But you'll have to get south and well away from any sizeable city because the cities around northern Illinois are growing like mad. The far away out in the boonies 2 lane country road that we used to drag race on is now a 4 lane divided highway and the geographic center of Elgin and lined with thousands of homes and hundreds of businessess for miles and miles. Very wierd.

The seed and field corn harvest is getting underway, as is the soybean harvest and the final haying. Makes for good smells as we go along. We passed thru one town where there's a huge DelMonte canning factory. This facility cans (can you guess?) CORN. We wondered if all the DelMonte corn in the country comes from this factory.

The sweet corn is nearly gone and I am so glad we made it to Illinois in time for sweet corn. My, my it was so stupendously good. Our thanks to my sister Lynn, who made it possible for us to eat ears and ears and ears of sweet corn and also let me eat Beef Villa Italian Beef Sandwiches twice one day.

It is thundering outside now and the forecast is for scattered t-storms tomorrow. I thought I smelled rain as we were walking back to our motel. We have decided to take the scoot tomorrow instead of both bikes, for our sight seeing.

So now it's time to harvest and then to bed, I think. Love you all!

copyright 2010
Susan K Rathburn