Illinois - Iowa - Sunday Morning Run

Starting your run in a place called Rock Island just seems cool and the city planners laid out a nice loop for me to follow: over one bridge towards the Davenport baseball stadium, through the quiet Sunday morning city streets, past the casino, past the popular, but "To Go" coffee shop, back on a different bridge near a dam & an Army installation, back over the river & finishing on the riverside bike path. I expected a bigger challenge today from the mighty Mississippi.

Sunday morning traffic in Davenport allows posing on the median

Crossing the Mississippi River in style

Good Advice that I just didn't take

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Illinois - Wisconsin - The Cheesehead Run

Hello again Wisconsin, Big cities have a way of owning the surroundings and making runs become urban and Chicago extends its tentacles far from downtown. So it was a pleasure to encounter good weather and a nice empty, wooded trail on the beginning of the corridor near Lake Michigan. If only I had resisted the stopover just before that at one of Wisconsin's largest cheese stores (Mars Cheese Castle). Oh well I had wanted to experience a moment as a cheesehead.

Bike trail at border near Russell Street in Kenosha, Wisconsin

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Illinois - Indiana - Running in bright yellow

Hunting season has arrived and so I donned a bright fluorescent shirt to run on the dirt road through the woods and fields from Illinois to Indiana near New Haven, Illinois. The weather was bright & sunny and made for a pleasant rural run with the exception of a few muddy spots. The actual border was marked by a gate on the road - a common sight at borders separating different landowners. Immediately afterwards were old (inactive) drilling rigs with "No Trespassing" signs. But they were meant for hunters and people that might cause damage - not for Crazy Runners.

Mud puddle or fishing spot?

Farms are everywhere

Trying to keep out runners? Then the NO SMOKING part is not necessary

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Illinois - Kentucky - The 132 Cockle Burr Run

This border does not want to be run. The Ohio River looms large and has few bridge crossings between these 2 states. The bridge crossings that exist are pretty dangerous for running. For me, that made the on-land area near Old Shawneetown, IL the best option. And there are plenty of empty dirt roads on the Illinois side for great runs of varied distances. But for me to be 100% certain that I had run across the state border, I had to freestyle and make my own trail through brush and briars and trees. It was only after I stopped that I realized that my long running pants and my socks and my shoes had collected cockle burrs (like sand spurs). Overall (& according to my count), I removed 132 during & after the run.

Look how high floodwaters from the river had left deposits

Gravel road among the beans

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Illinois - Missouri - Showing the Show-Me State How I Run

Simple plan: get dropped off in Venice, Illinois & get picked up in Madison, Illinois. It is a bit less than 12 miles total counting the two 1-mile bridge crossings of the Mississippi River. The first bridge is McKinley and it has a dedicated pedestrian lane on the eastbound side with a great view of St.Louis and the arch. Once I reached the  shore in Missouri, I followed the sweeping circle SOUTH to grab the trail NORTH. I saw one group of 3 bicyclists in the first 5 miles and about a dozen people total before reaching the second bridge - so you are basically running alone on a paved trail behind factories.

McKinley Bridge Venice IL - St. Louis Missouri

St. Louis & Mississippi River

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