Day Nine: Let’s Ride! The Scenic Route from Muscatine to Hannibal

Day Nine: Let’s Ride! The Scenic Route from Muscatine to Hannibal
We woke up to blue skies this morning and, after doing our laundry (always a taxing duty on the road) we found a nice little riverside diner (called The Riverside Diner) and had a nice breakfast. We started out with smiles on our faces, knowing that today was going to be the kind of day all true motorcyclists love—the ride. Earlier we charted out the waypoints in order to end up at Hannibal, MO, hometown of Mark Twain and all the ghosts of Tom, Becky, Huck, and various other figments of the great man’s imagination.
We took off from Muscatine by way of the GPC plant that we had not yet seen. We did find it, although it was pretty slow being a Sunday morning and all . We stopped and took some pictures and then journeyed on down the road. Today’s goal was majority two-lane roads going through various river towns down the eastern edge of Iowa and Missouri.
The flooding is incredible that we saw today; the rivers are huge, the creek beds swollen out of their banks, and the corn fields almost hurt to look at. Not all fields are this way, but the vast majority in this area seem to have had or currently have degrees of flood damage. I took several pictures that are in the photo stream. Most of them are in Missouri, just crossing the Iowa border.
We’ve always been a sucker for a good old river town, so today was fun to see the various buildings and sites. Once we started down hwy 61 and passed through the towns of Grandview, Wapello, and Mediapolis, to our first waypoint in Burlington. We pulled into the H-D dealership there only to find the sign saying it was closed on Sunday…hhhmmm… It still got an “official” picture and I figure we can contact them for a dealer dot or poker chip to add to the collection .
We then wandered ahead down 61 and found the town of Fort Madison—what a neat little place. This town is the true definition of a river town. The old buildings still hug the edge of the street overlooking the river. There’s an old fort we looked around (not in the mood for the complete tour—you know—we rather ride), and then we headed down to the local watering hole for bikers and boaters. We found a cold beer, but unfortunately no food since they were crazy backed up. So with a few more pictures of the pretty riverside, off we headed toward our journey through Keokuk. We found a great little bar on the river’s edge that reminded us of The Dock at Leavenworth, so we stopped to find food. Once again, no luck—seems people like to come out on a picture perfect day and there were droves and a backed-up kitchen. We sat with a glass of iced tea, watched a bit of the Brickyard (it was Montoya’s race to lost at that point) and then journeyed on.
Once through Keokuk, we were immediately across the border and into Missouri. We stayed on 61, also known as the Highway of Saints and rode into Canton. It’s a nice burg as well and really nice once we found a Sonic to have a late lunch. We’re not much on the chain food places, but that Sonic burger and those tots tasted mighty fine! On our way out we took at look at the Locks and then headed on down toward the destination point of Hannibal.
Our good friend Greg told us about this highway; it is indeed an easy road to travel and you can pretty well pick your speed. We noticed only one state trooper that was correcting the “wrong pick” of a vehicle…but only one the whole day! Not bad!
We arrived in the Hannibal area and started looking for a place to stay. We didn’t find any mom and pops in the immediate vicinity. We had decided since Missouri had helmet laws and we couldn’t just hop on the bike and ride that we would park it and take to walking wherever we went. We ended up at a really nice Best Western on the river (sort of). Good accommodations, good price, and good location…suited us!
After we got all out stuff moved in, we changed into shorts and flip flops and off we went to explore. Several places were still open which was great and a little surprising on an early Sunday evening. We ended up enjoying a good cold gin and tonic along with a shared chef salad and catfish filet at Rumor’s, a locals’ bar on the main drag. It was a fun place; the kind where you’re more or less brought into the local conversation and bull session. After a good meal and drink, we started just looking around and ended up at a Wisconsin cheese shop (can you believe it) where this nice guy had some good chocolate/peanut butter ice cream pie. We sat and shot the breeze with him for awhile and then headed up the 244 steps to the lighthouse (we assured we sweat off the pie on that trip). Took some pictures and then headed down to look and click along the way back to the hotel.
We settled in, got that all-important shower, fired up the laptop and marveled at the best wi-fi we’d had the whole trip, and then smiled as we watched the Cardinals beat the Cubs in 11 innings …a nice way to end a great day. Ttyl














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