Thursday, July 28th
This has been a beautiful and eventful day. It was foggy when I first woke up about 6:30 but was burning off as I walked into Kalin's Cafe on Main St. in Du Quoin at 8 o'clock for breakfast. I had been told to look for Jennie's and couldn't find it, but this place with no name outside looked busy. I later found that it just opened this week under its new name after having been redecorated in side. It is attractively done in white, black and red. The floors are black and white tiles, the table tops are white and the chairs/booths are black, but edges of things are trimmed in red. It looked so fresh I wasn't surprised that it had just been redone.
There was the usual table of local guys, about 10 up by the front window, and several groups of 2 or 3 people were scattered around the fairly large room. The guys at the large table were doing a lot of laughing and sparing with the waitress who was thoroughly enjoying it. My breakfast of eggs and ham was typically good. An older man, who was greeted as reverend, came in with probably his wife and 10 year old grandson. As the table of men broke up I began noticing that everyone had a cell phone on their belt. I didn't see one on the reverend, but just then he pulled one out of his pocket and answered it.
As I was taking the doors off of the jeep outside the restaurant in preparation of leaving, the last guy from the table came out and said, "I just have to ask, why do you have this golf bag strapped to the front bumper?" So I had to tell him the whole story about my trip and how I was going to need space for people and luggage, so had strapped on the bag to carry two canvas folding chairs. He seemed to think it was a good idea. Apparently the guys had been talking about it and he had said he was sure there must be something inside it. His name I believe was Dan Faulk and he worked at the bank next door. I told him how we always look for the local eateries where the local businessmen get together for breakfast. He acknowledged that was true of his group with a few retirees thrown in.
I drove west from Du Quoin (the waitress said it was named after an Indian Chief but his name was spelled DuCoyne) to Ft Kaskaskia which is on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, north of Chester, IL.. There is a park there which includes a cemetery and a shelter house. The view from the shelter house is of the river at the place where the town of Kaskaskia was flooded in the 1880's when the Mississippi changed its course to flow in what had been the Kaskaskia River bed. The town soon sank to the bottom of the present river. When this happened, it created an island west of the Mississippi which is still part of Illinois, on which some 50 to 100 people still live and the Immaculate Conception Church established in 1703 still exists as a parish. This island, in Illinois, is only accessible by road from Missouri.
The town of Kaskaskia was originally settled by French refugees from their revolution and the Fort was built originally by the French to protect the town and the French fur traders who were the first Europeans to come to the area. Below the fort and nearer the river is the Pierre Menard House built in 1802 which I toured. He was an early settler, the presiding officer of the territorial legislature, and the 1st Lt. Governor of Illinois. The first capitol of Illinois was in Kaskaskia, then later was moved to Vandalia and finally to Springfield.
Nearby Chester, Il. has the distinction of being the home town of the creator of the Popeye comic strip. A statue of Popeye is in a small park beside the bridge there which crosses the Mississippi into Missouri. I drove across and up to the island that is still in Illinois that I described above. The Immaculate Conception Church is there and I talked with a lady outside the church. Her family and others are trying to keep the parrish going, although many were driven out when the levee around the island broke during the great flood in the 1990's. There is not much left of Kaskaskia, which moved here after the original town was flooded when the Mississippi changed course in 1881.
A little farther north on the river in Missouri is St. Genevieve. It was the first white settlement in Missouri, and more thriving than St. Louis early on. It is noted for its variety of architecture, having many French Creole style homes and then later German style buildings. The French Creole homes (and also the Menard House) were built with vertical logs spaced a few inches apart in the walls supporting sills and beams which in turn support the floors. Clapboards cover the outside and the interior walls are plaster over lathe. I toured La Maison de Guibourd-Valle, Guibourd for the family that built it sometime between 1790 and 1810 and Valle for its subsequent owners from 1931 until it was given to a foundation in the 1970's.
I left St. Genevieve about 4 pm. and drove west on MO 32 through some hilly country and the Mark Twain National Forrest where the road became very crooked. At first the drive was pleasant but then all of the turns and up and downs became bothersome. I finally arrived in Salem just after 6 and got a satisfactory, clean and reasonably priced room at the Walnut Motel. I had a martini and rib-eye steak, both quite good, for dinner at the Gregory S. Road House just west of town. I'm now ready to end a very good, enjoyable day. Have so far come 500 miles.
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