Day 19 - Grafton, IL to St. Louis, MO (56 Miles)

I started today with a beautiful riverside ride flanked by steep limestone bluffs on a dedicated bikeway that runs from Pere Marquette State Park to Alton, IL. At the end of this stretch I saw the Piasa Bird petroglyph that I have included in the posted photos for this section. The story, as I recall, behind this is that when Father Marquette left St. Ignace, MI on his voyage in search of a water passage to the Pacific in the 1760s he was warned that he would encounter monsters in this area. While he never saw monsters, he did see a Native American petroglyph in the bluffs high above the river. The petroglyph washed away over time and all that is known about it is the descriptions in journals and stories that have been passed down, which are somewhat inconsistent with each other. This is a reproduction of that petroglyph based on those descriptions.

In Alton I met fellow cyclist and former school teacher, Jim, who guided me through the trails north of St. Louis. Together we saw the spot where Louis and Clark began their journey, the point of confluence of The River and the Missouri River, and the Chain of Rocks Bridge, which was part of Route 66, and currently is used exclusively by pedestrians and bicyclists.

The Chain of Rocks, which is shown in the posted photograph of me taken from the bridge, resembles a natural dam in the River. Since it makes The River non-navigable in low water, a channel has been dredged around that segment of The River to accommodate barge and boat traffic.

The final 9 miles of today's ride was on the Waterfront Trail through the industrial north side of St. Louis and ending at the Arch. It was quite an interesting ride and I will post some photos from that area tomorrow.

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