Continuing west we motored through Ohio and Indiana before visiting friends in Hoopeston Illinois. Leaving Hoopeston, we headed to western Illinois and started our journey along the Great River Road.

The Great River Road is a collection of state and local roads that follow the course of the Mississippi River through ten states of the United States. They are Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. We will follow the river into Minnesota.

Leaving route 6 at the Ohio border we headed to Ashtabula to follow the county’s covered bridge trail. The county has two trails covering 19 bridges. We selected the North & Eastern tour covering 13 bridges: spanning 69 miles.

Driving the backroads of Indiana all we saw were miles upon miles of corn and soya beans with some sunflowers thrown in for good measure – except in Kokomo, The Sieberling Mansion. The Mansion was built by Monroe Seiberling, one of the first entrepreneurs to take advantage of the Indiana Gas Boom for large-scale industrial production. The building is an unusual combination of Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival architectural styles, with distinctive stonework, a huge wrap-around porch, and a three-story tower topped by an arcade and acorn-shaped roof.

We started our Great River Road trip at the Mississippi River Visitor Center which is located on the Rock Island Arsenal in Rock Island, Illinois at Locks & Dam 15, overlooking the Upper Mississippi River. Since the early 1800’s the Corps of Engineers has been instrumental in making the river navigable for both commercial and recreational vessels. In early spring the river opens to commercial navigation. From April through mid-December visitors can watch boats pass through the locks. On our day there were no boats. An excellent view of the Government Bridge or Arsenal Bridge spanning the Mississippi River, connecting Rock Island, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa is afforded from the arsenal grounds. BTW to get into the arsenal you need to go through a security check which is like applying for a Global Entry Pass.

Heading upriver we stopped at Fulton noted for its working Dutch Windmill, set upon a Mississippi levy.

Next a stop at Lock 12 where we could see a riverboat heading downstream.

There were several state parks along the way which afforded excellent views of the river and its flood plain.

Finishing our day, we headed inland along the Ulysses Grant Highway to Galena and to the US Grant State Historic Site, which includes the Grant house (with fence) and Elihu B. Washburne House. Elihu Washburne (1816-1887), a prominent Galena attorney and later a U.S. congressman (1853-1869), political adviser to Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, and ambassador to France (1869-1877).