Holy cornbelt Batman!

After a morning thunderstorm and a few false starts (was it the battery, or was it operator-error? Hmm, and what's this little red switch next to the ignition?!), I departed the 'hood at the crack of noon. My goal is to stick to the old river roads, which often just evolved from the old Indian trails. Shortly after Joliet I pick up US 6 heading west, which follows the Illinois River--beautiful lazy road, nice little towns along the way, and being that it was a bright summer Sunday, there were many old dudes out cruising in their old cars and trucks. My meticulously-planned hot dog feed in La Salle was thwarted when I discovered the stand I like there so much was closed. But one town over, at the western edge of Peru, IL, stood the Igloo. 10 stools at an L-shaped counter "that hadn't changed in 50 years" an old-timer inside informed me. He said the best thing there was the pork tenderloin sandwich, and it was! So porky, so tendery. Washed down with a strawberry shake and I am primed for more saddle-time. There were spots of rain all around me, but somehow I managed to dodge them as I meandered among the jillions of acres of corn and motored towards Moline--Gateway to Iowa. Crossing the Mississippi was...a little scary on the very old US 6 bridge, but I made it, dawdled through Davenport, IA as I tried to find the Great River Road (so many amazing old buildings there---but none that looked like sofas! "This is the town that gave that piece of furniture its name, ain't it?" No one could tell me.). I finally found it--Hiway 22, running south just along the western bank of the Mississippi River. A few cars and bikes on the road, a few speedboats on the river, but mostly just me and the setting sun. A quick stop in Muscatine for a keg of lemonade and some give-my-butt-a-rest time then onwards, into the "evening hatch" (Bobbi informed me of its name). The "evening hatch" is evident when your bisecting miles and miles of cornfields, dodging hundreds of psycho, flitty birds that are trying to eat the millions of cornfieldy bugs that have just hatched...in the evening. Those that don't get eaten by birds wind up on my windscreen---so now I know what my first duty will be in the morning. Incidentally---getting a late start again in the morning to avoid the "morning hatch". First port of call on the journey is Burlington, IA, and the jacuzzi in my HI Express room is yummy for my bummy. Then dinner alongside the river in an old Burlington-Northern freight building that is now Big Muddy's, where cold beer + big racks of ribs = happy Mark. Monday it's off to follow the Mormon Trail across southern Iowa towards Council Bluffs.