Devil's Backbone CG

We hopped the ferry back into Illinois and most of the riding today was fairly flat. The roads are in the Bottoms which is what they are calling the floodplain. It is much wider on this side of the river. We were often able to ride on paved levees past the cornfields. We did ride up the hill into Chester because 31 years ago we crossed the Mississippi River there on a west to east cross country ride on our tandem. This marks the intersection of our W-E trip and our N-S trip. Chester is where the comic strip "Popeye" originated in the 1920s and 1930s. My Dad got his nickname Jeep after the character Eugene the Jeep. Last time we were here we took pictures of the Popeye statue for him but now there is one of Olive Oyl holding SweePea and standing by Eugene the Jeep so of course we took a picture. 

After 63 miles we found a campground right by the river and we are sitting at the picnic table watching the barges pass and the sun set over the river.