US-50 Coast-to-Coast: Day 5

I left Washington Indiana at 7:00 am EST. It took about ½ hour to get to the Illinois border. Once in Illinois, it was a straight road for hours, almost for the entire length of Illinois.  In Illinois, the 50 did not directly go into many of the towns like it did in Ohio and West Virginia. Many times I drove for an hour between towns.  Each time the gap was filled with endless crops of corn that were 6+ feet tall like those surrounding Ocean City, Maryland. 

The road in Illinois was terrible as opposed to most of the roads in West Virginia and Ohio. There were tar snakes all over and there were consistent bumps that jarred your bones every few hundred feet. 

I stopped for a mid-morning coffee break in Bellville Illinois, which I remember as being the home of Jimmy Connors. I entered the local MacDonald’s restaurant and I think about 30 people stopped talking and stared at me. I guess it is the storm trooper look of my motorcycle gear that freaks them out. 

After I passed by St. Louis, I reached Union, Mo., and had lunch. After Union, the road was totally different than what I encountered in Illinois. There were 50 miles of beautiful rolling hills and the gentle swooshing of the road through grass fields and forests. This was the best road at 60 MPH that I had so far encountered on the trip.  West Virginia was good, but it was in the 45 MPH range with occasional dips into 35 and 25 MPH. The weather was clear but hot through Missouri.   

I arrived in Jefferson City, Mo. shortly after 3:00 PM, which was 4:00 PM EST. The ride was a duration of 10 hours, 5.43 hours of move time for 315 miles, and the temperature got to 95 degrees, but this was the easiest day so far.