Illinois & Indiana

Sitting on the Western bank of the Mississippi and funneling traffic from Missouri across to southern Illinois, Cape Girardeau represents a cultural border town. Here, detailed and decorative architecture shroud the empty fronts of tired long closed homes and businesses that stand as a physical representation of a power that no longer stands independently, but as a major partner in a reluctant union.

Cape Girardeau is named after a French soldier called Jean Baptiste de Girardot, who in 1733 established a temporary trading post which, over time, has evolved into the pretty but tired town that you see here today. Now, via the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge it connects Routes 34 and 74 and Route 146 on the other side of the Mississippi River. For us, it now also represents a (temporary) end of the Mid West and the beginning of our first (temporary) exposure to the American South.

And on to Illinois...

We were not going to be in Illinois very long and we needed to find a town where we could get both a badly behaved camera fixed, and some precariously exposed film developed. University towns are always a good bet for this, so we briefly ventured through the Shawnee National Forest to Carbondale, home of Southern Illinois University. This place had a vibe that both of us liked immediately. It seemed like a lively, friendly and creative community for which the university represented a strong beating heart.

This was my favourite town since Salida in Colarado.

Carbondale

Rebecca has a theory. I’m not sure that it would stand up in Europe, but here in America it has so far wrung true. Basically, she thinks that vegetarian restaurants tend to be located within the most interesting and creative parts of American towns. Well, from California right across to Illinois this theory has so far wrung true, and yet again, this time in Carbondale, it has wrung true once again. I guess that this has something to do with the fact that vegetarianism in this land of such staunch and enthusiastic carnivorism remains (for many) a deviance that can only be tolerated within same fringes of society that tolerate the most interesting art and music. Either way, it is a good rule that has served us well.

After a night spent close by in the cheap and well maintained 'Giant City State Park' we continued east on Highway 64 into Indiana. If our stay in Illinois was brief, our stay in the Hoosier State was going to be rapid, as we pressed forward with with haste on our journey to the Atlantic .

Whilst in Indiana, we stayed in a strange small town called Dale in a cheap motel from which we watched yet another perfect sunset disappear behind another endless American Highway.

Dale

Indiana Sunset

© All Images By Paul