Kentucky-Illinois: Pretty Lucky Ol’ Boy

Lucky, fortunate, thankful to be able to make this trip and to have it be going so well. “Ol’ boy”: boyish joy of the bike—especially the roller coaster hills where descents provide enough momentum to fling you over the next rise—and seeing such beautiful country as I’ve been able to pass through. Olding bones.

Paris Landing State Park – Cape Girardeau, MO: 114 miles, if you don’t miss the turn into Cape Girardeau, a few more if you do.

Most of my biking was through KY and IL but \started around 4AM in TN and ended after sunset in MO. This will be the only part of my journey in which I ride through four states.

Cairo (pronounced “Kay-ro”, I learned), IL is a ghost-town in the making. How eerie to ride through this town of abandoned, crumbling buildings and houses with torn screens and broken windows. You can barely make out “Welcome to Cairo” on a four-story sign of cracking and peeling paint on the southern side: a worn-out welcome I guess. I would find out about the widespread disgust that so much land and so many homes and businesses along the Mississippi were allowed to be flooded rather than to provide euthanasia for this decaying and, so I heard, decadent town.

Just before the long, narrow bridge over the Ohio River into Cairo, a guy in a pick-up stopped to offer carrying my bike and me over the bridge. As I pedaled over, I thought of cousin Roger’s story of laboring over a bridge like this and holding up traffic. On the other side, a guy in a pick-up blasted his horn at him, called him a few names, then did a u-turn and headed right toward Roger, sending him crashing into the ditch. Fortunately, I passed at a time when there was not much traffic and none to pressure or curse me.

I had my lunch in Cairo’s empty park, then continued on, but the 100 heat was too much, so, out of town a couple miles, I walked my bike through bushes between the road and an abandoned house and took a nap on the shaded cement slab serving as its porch. I noticed inside framed pictures strewn on the floor: three generations. The place reminded me of Pilate’s home in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.

Near sunset, I met a father-and-son pair of bikers going in the opposite direction—but, like me, planning to stay that night in Cape Girardeau. I had missed the turn-off a few miles back: the sign for Cape Girardeau must have been taken down by the flood.

I stayed in a campground near the bike shop I had found on the web when in Murfreesboro and would go to the next day. One review of the campground was “Great place: no trees to scratch your RV.” And no trees for slinging your hammock. It was indeed camp ground for my bed that night.

Remnants of the flood; a week earlier, I wouldn't have been able to pass over the route I took.

Crossing over the Mississippi, from Illinois into Cape Girardeau, MO