08/03/01 Lincoln (IL) – Stanton (MO) / 422 km

We got up early and we went to a nearby supermarket to buy breakfast: milk, juice, fruit and some bread rolls. In the following days we did this a few times.

Before leaving Illinois, we had to pass by Springfield. There are two Springfields in the US (at least) one in Illinois and the other one in Missouri. We did not know which one was the Springfield where Bart Simpson lived so we decided to find it out and were all eyes in case we saw him with the scooter. While looking for Bart, we run across Bill Shea´s (2075 Peoria road).

Nowadays the bridge is open only for pedestrians and for bicycles, and only during week-ends. As we did not know that we arrived on a Friday and we could only get close to the fence in one of the sides. Bas luck. A pity since it has to be interesting to cross the bridge. After having seen the bridge we took the motorway and we continued. It is very nice to enter Missouri, not been hilly, it has a lot of unevenness and it is very green. It was a pleasant change of landscape.

Even if we wanted to get to Rolla, we followed the motorway and we reached Stanton, where the Meramec Caverns are. Josune wanted to get off the bike at any price, her bottom was very sore and she could not stretch the legs, so when she saw that campsite in the Meramec Cavers, next to a river and all, she told me she had had enough. Meramec Caverns are quite nice. They have built the typical tourist attraction with a souvenir shop and stuff. I do not like this kind of stunts so I did not go inside but Josune went to see what all that was about and she walked just up to point where you had to pay to get inside the caverns. She was nosing around in the shops. She was very surprised by the fact that in these caverns, back in the 60´s they used to celebrate dancing sessions that were extremely popular, in one hand because it was in the way of Route 66 and in the other hand because it was a naturally air-conditioned place. But what makes these cavers really popular is the fact that according to the legend the caverns where the hideout of the famous bandit Jesse James and his band and the county sheriffs would never find them. Some experts say anyway that all this story about Jessy James is just an hoax that has been invented to get money from tourist and to tell you the truth it looks like it works. No matter if the story is true or false, we had a bath in the river. The temperature of the water was very high and the current was quite heavy, according to a sign in the shore it was nor allowed to have a bath in the river. I asked a ranger that was over there where could we have a bath and he said that wherever we wanted, and then I pointed at the sign, and he said to forget about it, that that was only in order not to assume responsibilities in case something happened but that we could have a bath if we wanted. What a cheek, isn´t it?

We went to have dinner to the village, and when coming back to the campsite it was already dark. The Marshalls at the door (exactly as the ones in the cartoon of the Yogi bear) put their movie-police-like-torches in our faces as if we were criminals. Maybe it was because we were in the motorbike?

The night was wonderful, full of stars, and some people in the campsite set fires. Very romantic.