ILLINOIS and MISSOURI
Dec. 2006
PART 3
Our jaunt through Times Beach continues! The abandoned town was actually a very solemn sight. Here though the sun is beaming in on the left side of the photo as if to symbolize hope in the face of adversity (sort of like in the "Just Think" banner that periodically graces the Conservative Fool Of The Day blog). I think here we're pulling off the loop road through the park and looking west on a now-closed stretch of Old US 66.
Leaving Times Beach, going east on Old US 66.
Continuing on Old US 66 on a bridge over the Meramec River, a waterway known to flood Times Beach.
Quincy, IL! Quincy is a burg of 40,000 peeps along the Mississip. It was named after Jack Klugman's character on Quincy, M.E. (just joking). This is the skyline of Quincy in the morning twilight.
Now we're boppin' about the Quince! This is west on Broadway, which carries IL 104. Looking straight ahead, Broadway feeds into the US 24 bridge to Missouri. But if you get in the far-left lane, Broadway splits and goes down to the riverfront.
Downtown Quincy again!
Now we're going into West Quincy, MO, on that bridge that Broadway feeds into. This bridge is actually one-way, carrying US 24 westbound only. Unfortunately, it is beset by the same ban on pedestrians as the bridge we saw in Chester was, and it's too busy for bicyclists. (I wouldn't necessarily trust the shoulder either, because it probably looks wider than it is.) Not exactly a model of inclusiveness, is it?
From the westbound bridge, we're looking south at the bridge that carries US 24 eastbound and feeds into Maine Street. That bridge also bans pedestrians. Because both surface road bridges in Quincy mandate a motorized vehicle, and because there's no other surface road span for miles, you're pretty much out of luck if you live in Quincy but work in West Quincy.
We're still on the westbound US 24 span. Now we're looking north at a rail bridge. I don't know any of the details of the rail span.
From here, off we goed into the distance! On this trip, we also grazed the southeastern corner of Iowa.