Day 15 (August 26th): Mississippi River Crossing

Today we crossed the Mississippi River! We got a relatively early start, only to get a flat 5 miles down the road (Kathleen this time, and she changed it perfectly!), where I realized that the bike shop in Paducah still had my wheel key, without which I couldn't change a tire. So, we had to pedal back to Paducah and start our day all over again just before 10. Still, we were rewarded with a brilliant sun that illuminated the full palette of greens that Ballard County, KY, has to offer. The cycling itself was very easy over virtually no hills. We made great time, calmly pedaling away, until we were swept onto the Highway 60 Ohio River bridge into Illinois (there's a little piece of Illinois that dangles down at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers). I rarely feel physical fear, but I sure did when I saw this bridge ahead. Since it was around a curve and we were already on a causeway, there was no pausing to contemplate our situation. We just pedaled as fast as we could, and landed in Cairo, Illinois. At lunch in this virtual ghost town (at least the part we saw), I mentioned the crossing still ahead, into Missouri. Kathleen just looked at me for a while and said, "That wasn't the Mississippi?" We had both been silent through lunch, recovering from all that adrenaline, and we looked around for other ways to get to Missouri. Does Cairo have a ferry? No. A taxi service? No. Another bridge? Only an interstate. A route up to the Cape Girardeau crossing would cost us almost 100 miles, and we had no idea if that bridge would be any less daunting. Our waitress assured us that the Mississippi crossing wasn't as bad, since it had four lanes (this turned out to be an un-truth). I really hesitate to post these photos, and since they're taken from the ground, they make the bridges look super scary. They were scary, but not unsafe-looking from our vantage on the road. (I really don't want my mother to see these, but for everyone else's information ...) Here's the Kentucky to Illinois bridge over the Ohio River: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimfrazier/109019067/ And the Illinois to Missouri bridge over the Mississippi: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimfrazier/109019070/ Thanks to that guy for his two photos. We're still in the flood plain in Missouri, with soybean fields and one tractor-trailer every 5 minutes or so. It's calm and flat. I saw my first tractor since Cabarrus County, NC, driving along the road today. We traveled from McCracken County through Ballard Co, Kentucky, to Cairo (don't know the county in Illinois) and into Mississippi County here in Missouri, all along Highway 60. We're meeting up with the TransAmerica trail in a couple of days, so my routing will not take us over such frightening infrastructure again. Through my tension, the Big Muddy River still amazed me with its size and commerce. These next few states are all new to me, and I feel that full-on wonderment, even among the dried and dying corn fields.