Alton’s more intriguing landmark is the
Piasa Bird (say “pie-uh-saw”), a Native American dragon painting on a limestone bluff over the river. The current mural is a recreation that must be refreshed regularly, and the actual date of its origin is in ques- tion. But it was there when the first Euro- pean explorers arrived, and it may have been painted originally about 1200 C.E. An early diary describes the dragon this
way: “as large as a calf with horns like a deer, red eyes, a beard like a tiger's, a face like a man, the body covered with green, red and black scales and a tail so long it passed around the body, over the head and between the legs.” The most likely answer to the obvious question: mushrooms. Looking for a way south, I choose a short
detour east to ride Illinois 4 between twin seas of corn and beans rather than navigate the East St. Louis snarl or fight St. Louis’ stop-and-go. The route is string straight and lumber flat, but calming and fragrant under an oversized sky. Trying to find the eastern terminus of the
Modoc Ferry, I’m lost. All around is bot- tomland in a maze of tiny, humpty roads. Finally, by luck, I locate the so-called “French Connection,” the farmer-owned ferry to Missouri. Here, the Mississippi— what St. Louis roots musician Pokey LaFarge calls “the backbone of the nation”— demonstrates its strength, preparing to swallow the huge Ohio 85 miles farther downstream. White foam swirls up around the ferry as we pass. Logs the size of school buses share the channel and command the ferryman’s attention. Riding on the little boat, there’s no escaping the river’s increas- ing impatience, and any confidence I’ve gained from earlier ferry experience sweeps away on this very different river. The Modoc drops me safely in Ste. Gen-
evieve, the only original French colonial village left in the U.S. Here, houses date from the late 1700s, many built in the French style of vertical log walls on stone foundations with porches called “galleries” on three sides to provide a shady spot no matter the time of day. The town is artsy/ quirky with great places to eat and chill. If you want the region’s best onion rings, try to get a table at The Anvil on the town square. Pair them with the French dip sand- wich—one step closer to France while seated. There were just two of us on the Modoc
Ferry trip, but south a few miles, the Ches- ter Bridge carries 25 or more times as much traffic. Finished first in 1942, the bridge was destroyed by a tornado just two years later, and it took another two years to reconstruct while residents were forced far out of their way to get across. On the east end of the bridge, a six-foot statue of Popeye now stands guard, memorializing Elzie Segar, the Chester native who was the sailor man’s creator. Around town, Wimpy, Olive Oyl, Alice the Goon and Popeye’s other peeps are recreated in gray marble on a character trail. Following a U-turn to the Missouri side,
I’m heading home but detour to Kaskaskia, Illinois, to see the Liberty Bell of the West. Presented by Louis XV to the people of the Illinois Country in 1741, it’s been enshrined in Kaskaskia for centuries. It was rung there on July 4, 1778, when George Rogers Clark
rousted the Redcoats. Kaskaskia is also notable because it’s on the west side of the Mississippi but part of Illinois. Such are the vagaries of laying state boundaries along big rivers. Courses change unpredictably. The river ferries won’t last. An upstream
example closed down in 2014, and whispers have another one in fiscal trouble. Only 11 still cross the Mississippi anywhere along its length. The ferries’ slow pace, small capac- ity and big expense have doomed them. New, 70-mph bridges—some architectur- ally beautiful and some just pavement extensions—will overwhelm them. Smaller, more characterful bridges may face extinc- tion as well. When that day comes, it will end an experience both discrete and vis- ceral. If you are intrigued by the notion of exploring all that it means to cross over with a great river’s blessing and at its speed, now is the time to put your bike out on the flow.
March 2017 BMW OWNERS NEWS 59
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