Day: June 22, 2017

Out of interest we have visited 14 States and done just under 3500 miles:

• Illinois 
• Indiana 
• Ohio 
• Pennsylvania 
• Maryland 
• Virginia 
• West Virginia 
• North Carolina 
• South Carolina 
• Georgia 
• Tennessee 
• Kentucky 
• Missouri 
• Iowa 

Sadly Illinois isn’t the most interesting state to ride through. However we knew that when planning the trip so haven’t had to face disappointment. What did surprise us was how poor the road surfaces were – dreadful. Andy believes Illinois may be quite a hard up state hence little money spent on infrastructure? 

We’ll be giving the bikes back tomorrow and neither of us will be too sorry to do so. Both of us had a good idea what riding a Harley Davidson would be like but hoped the reality would be better than the stories we’d heard. Also neither of us regret the decision to hire them as a) we’ve experienced riding America on its iconic motorcycle and b) no other hire bike offered us the dealership network/security HD did. However they are primitive and very unresponsive compared to Japanese and European bikes. Their main virtue was the seat was comfortable, unfortunately this was negated by their screens terrible airflow design which caused excessive buffering.  But that’s life. (Picture below is of final ‘on the road’ hotel in Zion near Chicago.)

This morning we went to Mark Twain’s cave – where he played as a boy and wrote about in his novels. We were in the first tour at 9:30am along with about ten Americans. The tour guide and tour were superb with everybody in good spirit. We then set out for Le Claire – we were going to Davenport but the tour guide at the cave said Le Claire, which is next to it, might be better. It’s also the home to the TV programme ‘American Pickers’. We started out on Route 61 which runs alongside the Mississippi all the way. Sadly my satnav took us over the river into Illinois and we travelled in a more or less straight line through flat, featureless farmland for about one hundred and fifty miles! You just set the cruise control, try not to fall asleep and let your mind wander. We did find a family run diner though and had a very nice and homely brunch. Eventually we got to Le Claire, a pretty touristy small town on the Mississippi, and settled into a good but quite inexpensive hotel. We had a ‘light’ meal for supper. To  lake Michigan tomorrow.