To arrive at the landing, I’d come east on
Highway 94, a premiere winery route and a serpentine Midwestern motorcycling road for those miles where it climbs up and drops off the bluffs along the Missouri River. Stopping early in Washington, I learned I was taking a break in the corncob pipe capital of the world. The Missouri Meerschaum Company, founded in 1869 by Dutch immigrant Henry Tibbe, still looks out across Front Street to the river and the town dock. Today, it produces about 3,500 funny pipes per day. There are really two Washingtons: old
and new. Like many American towns, development now takes place out along the big highways, leaving the old river village high, if not always dry. You could pass through what you thought was Washington without ever catching a hint that the funky river town even exists. The old one suits me better. Washington’s cantilever truss bridge is
nearly worn out. Crossing the Missouri, it’s spanning the continent’s longest
river—
about 2,500 miles from headwaters to con- fluence with the Mighty Mississippi just downstream. From the bridge, I got a snap- shot of what some people call the Big Muddy. Others reserve that name for the Mississippi. In experience, both qualify. But
the name “Missouri” may really derive from a Miami Indian word that means “people who have dugout canoes.” My S 1000 R is certainly no canoe, and it
might not be BMW’s designated tourer, but if the goal is getting down the road abruptly—curvy and hilly or straight as a levee—well, here’s the device. The pressure of the small pack against my spine tells me that back there I have everything necessary for a couple of days. The brakes are true one-finger binders, so strong that I have to check the mirrors every time I apply them. Traffic closes up fast. Hustling into St. Charles, I rode through
not two but three towns in one. There’s the historic and touristy first capitol of the state, the rusty river town with boat services and dry docks, and finally the monstrous and Stepford-like St. Louis exurb. The three don’t appear to communicate. East again out of the confusion, I hustled into the bot- tomland to find my ferry landing. Once off the Golden Eagle, I’m in that
finger of land that is technically Illinois but trapped tight between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. Birders love this place. It’s a favorite wintering area for Bald Eagles that perch, then dive, to fish the rivers with alarming effectiveness. Orchards surround the Two Rivers National Wildlife Refuge
and its handy viewing stations. In gagging, late-summer humidity, I
want out. My best bet is the next ferry, the Brussels, across the Illinois River. The Illi- nois is way smaller than the Mississippi, making for a quick (and free) trip across slow water that delivers me to Highway 100, called “The Great River Road.” Ignoring the tourist lures of Grafton, Illinois, I ride just feet away from the Mississippi, now swollen to twice its earlier size. I refocus regularly on riding and try to ignore the mesmeriz- ing river. Clark Bridge is the largest landmark in
Alton, Illinois, and it looms for miles before I get there. It sits near the starting point of the 1804–06 Lewis and Clark expedition that was charged with mapping the newly acquired territory, finding a practical way west, and establishing an American pres- ence there. The bridge, often called “The Super Bridge,” was featured in a NOVA documentary of that name, which described the troubles of building it during the great flood of 1993. Its striking design uses more than 160 miles of cabling for support but suffers some of the problems of minimalist engineering. Just west, the Lewis Bridge spans the Missouri, a slab on stilts design that hands Merriwether Lewis the short end of the memorial-bridge stick.
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BMW OWNERS NEWS March 2017
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