9-13-2012 (Thursday) Burlington, Iowa to Quincy, Illinois)

Bicycled 86 miles today
Ride time – 6 hours 10 minutes
13.9 mph



Bridge leaving Burlington!

Hello Illinois

Farmers are busy in the fields!

Our day started out great this morning.  We left our hotel this morning at 7:03 under cloudy skies and cooler temperatures with a forecast of 80% chance of rain. 2 miles of hills through Burlington and over the highway 34 bridge and we were into the bottom lands of the Mississippi river flood plain on the Illinois side of the river.  We headed south on 700E and we were fortunate enough to have a 10 mph tailwind.  The flood plain is perfectly flat so we were able to cruise right along with the help of the tailwind. 

Twenty miles into our ride we stopped at a little café in Dallas City, Illinois for breakfast.  John hit the jackpot by ordering what is called the “Horseshoe Breakfast”.  It contained a saucer size sausage patty with muffins on top of that with a 3/4” layer of hash browns, two over easy eggs on top of that, and everything smothered in white sauce gravy.  He said it was all he needed to eat the entire day.  I ordered a vegetable omelet that was just ok – nothing to rave about like he did over his dish.

Heading out of Dallas City we again caught the tailwind and cruised on into Nauvoo.  Nauvoo is the site where the early Morman’s tried to settle but were eventually driven out of the area and forced to move west to the Salt Lake City, Utah area.  We stopped in and spent some time at the Joseph Smith Museum and looked over all kinds of memorabilia. One very interesting write up told of how caskets were manufactured during the period when many people were dying from cholera.  Rumor had it people had accidentally been buried alive so devices were installed in the caskets so the people buried could signal people above ground that they were still alive.  The mechanisms used accounted for some sayings used yet even today such as “the graveyard shift, dead ringer, and saved by the bell”. This is also the reason why most people are not buried for at least three days after their supposed death. It was a very interesting museum.



After that we headed downtown to the Morman Temple which overlooks the Mississippi River.  Reminded us a lot of when we were in St. George.

Morman Temple in Nauvoo, Illinois

Side of Morman Temple

Plaque in front of the horse statute!

Beautiful flowers were planted all around the statute!

After we got tired of looking around we headed out on Hwy 96 which parallels the Mississippi River and arrived in Hamilton about 11:45.  Our original plan was to stay in Hamilton but we were told at the gas station that their was no hotel in Hamilton.  At that point we had 50 miles on and we could have biked across the river to Keokuk and stayed in Iowa or we had the option to continue biking another 36 miles to Quincy, Illinois.  Even with the forecast for rain the weather so far had been very favorable with cool temperatures and helpful tailwinds so we decided to take our chances and bike to Quincy.



We continued on to Warsaw where we stopped for a light lunch and shot the bull with a couple of locals for a while.  Just as we were about to leave John looked out the door and noticed that it had started to rain.  We scrambled  to put on our rain gear and put the camera, wallet, and cell phone in zip lock bags and gritted our teeth and went on our way.  Warsaw did not have a hotel so staying there was not an option.  The ride from Warsaw to Quincy (35 miles) actually went very well even considering the light rain we had to deal with.  It was a great stretch of road, again almost perfectly flat and with the favorable tailwinds we averaged probably close to 18 mph for that 35 mile stretch.

As we are pedaling south we are definitely seeing the impact of the drought in this area.

Over the years we’ve been told by numerous people that our tandem bike and B.O.B. looks like a train coming down the road.  Some days we feel like an 1890’s steam engine huffing and puffing down the tracks, other days we feel like we are on a monorail.  Today was definitely a monorail day!

My Captain!

When we arrived in Quincy we found out that our hotel was on the top of the bluff and we ended up walking and pushing our bike about 3 blocks up a very substantial grade to get there.  All in all it was a great day – sometimes things just fall in line and work out.


After checking into the Microtel John spent about an hour wiping down the bike and cleaning it up after having ridden in the rain. In the mean time I showered and cleaned up. After John finished with the bike, cleaned up and showered we decided to spend the evening at the Riverside Smokehouse Pub and Grill to watch the Chicago Bears vs Green Bay Packer game on the NFL network. The Packers did a fine job of putting away the Bears 23 to 10, but get this...the pub had a game special selling 12oz bottles of beer for $1.00, the restaurant portion of the establishment was very busy that evening but there was a total of eight people watching the game, including us! We commented to the bar tender that we came from a community of about 700 people in Wisconsin and that if a bar in our area offered a game special like that the place would be packed. Her response was that most people in this area follow basketball. We didn't have the heart to tell her that when we were young we called them "round ballers". Then to top it off, halfway through the third quarter they closed the bar for the evening. Oh well, I guess were not in Wisconsin anymore!