Pleasant Hill to Grafton  – 58 miles

This morning we loaded up the bikes and shuttled back to Pleasant Hill to get ready to ride.  If we’re leaving from a hotel, all we need to do as far as the bikes are concerned is roll them outside and go (unless they have flat tires or something!).  But on a day where we have to shuttle, we have to set the bikes up all over again with the bike bags, GPS, water bottles, various snacks, extra gear -and a “partridge in a pear tree”.

Today’s route was supposed to be around 51 miles.  It ended up being around 58 miles.  We didn’t know that yet when we smiled for the camera!

The MRT continued South on the highway into a rural area that was sandwiched between the Mississippi River and the Illinois River.  Grafton -our destination for today- is very close to the confluence of the Illinois and the Mississippi rivers.  

Not too far down the road after we started riding, Nicky passed us headed to Grafton.  I had assumed that we wouldn’t see her again until we arrived at the hotel, but before long we spotted her stopped on the side of the road to take a bit of video of us in action.

There was a point where Nicky’s route and ours would go different ways.  Her route included a bridge to cross the Illinois River to get to Grafton.  The MRT route we were following went  “in between” the rivers to a a ferry that crosses the Illinois river just a few miles upriver from Grafton.  

The scenery was getting a bit more forested instead of farmland.

We were, again, riding into a headwind -which we were not enjoying.  When we got to the corner where Nicky had turned and we were supposed to go straight, we took a short break.  While stopped, we discussed whether or not we should switch our route to use the bridge too.  I knew it might add a few miles, but I thought that turning in a different direction would give us some relief from the wind.  And, I thought Mike would prefer riding over a bridge instead of the ferry. So we turned.

For quite a few miles…we wee patting ourselves on the back for that decision.  The wind wasn’t in our faces and at one point the road went downhill for about three miles -we were moving fast without doing much work.  That was fun. As we reached the Illinois River, we needed to take a turn along the river for about 10 miles to the bridge.  At that corner there were signs for detours/road construction for the road we needed.  At first, we were thinking we’d gotten ourselves into a pickle.  Then we figured out we were OK to ride on the road -it wasn’t closed to traffic.  We enjoyed many miles of newly asphalted road with sparse traffic and only one spot where they had a crew directing traffic for a one lane segment.  We were first in line when the construction guy held up the STOP sign to allow traffic on the other end to come through.  When we got the “go” sign, we kicked it as fast as we could through that spot so we didn’t hold up the cars behind us longer than necessary.

As we rolled into a town called Hardin, I was very happy to glimpse the bridge up ahead.  To me that meant:  We’re most of the way to Grafton. Hooray!  I spotted a small grocery store and thought it would be a good place for a quick last pit stop.  Someone on the way to their car commented that it was a nice day for a ride and asked bout our destination.  We answered, Grafton,  and they said… “You do know the bridge is closed, right?”  WHATTTTTTTTT?  No we didn’t !!!  Yep.  Closed for only 2 days…today being the second day.  Noooooooo!

It was going to reopen at 5…but who had time for that?  Detour time.  Of the choices, the only one that worked was to continue on the road we were on which would take us to the same ferry we’d originally been planning to use today.  Except the original route was far more direct.  We’d gone out of our way for that bridge and now the ref (aka our naughty imp) was blowing the whistle and throwing the yellow flag. We had “penalty miles” …seven of them… added to the day.

I texted Nicky to update her on our situation and she said she’s was just getting off the ferry herself.  When she’d seen the bridge closed, she wasn’t sure what her options were (there weren’t any alternate bridges for miles).  She stopped at a gas station to try to figure things out.  As Mike and I know, when a detour shows up and you’re not from there…it is hard to figure out how to get around it.  Two older local “characters” at the station told her about the ferry.  She hadn’t alerted us about the bridge because the last she’d heard -we weren’t supposed to be going over the bridge.

Those 18-ish miles to the ferry were really tough.  The headwind was back, and all we wanted was to be done for the day.  About halfway, we pulled over for a rest stop at a junction with a side road.  A truck came along to turn onto the side road.  The man in the truck stopped and rolled his window down to ask if we were OK? Did we need help?  We weren’t entirely OK… hah… but we put a brave face on it and told him we were fine and thanked him for being so kind as to check on us.

Finally! We were close!

At last!  The ferry crossing.  It was truly in the middle of nowhere.  Location wise, it was only a short distance before the confluence, of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers, so it being where it is was probably a logistical choice back in the old days.  (Confluences can be turbulent).

Yay!  We could take a rest break because we didn’t have to pedal across!

The Brussels ferry has been in operation here since around 1801.  There is a long history of ferries for both the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.  Around 1800, the early ferries were basically primitive hollowed out logs  (or canoes) that people had to either pole or paddle across themselves.  Ferries evolved as the years went by….canoes giving way to larger dinghies, which gave way to larger capacity ferries that used horsepower, which gave way to steam powered ferries.  When trains began to cross the country, special ferries were developed to transfer the rail cars across from one train to another.  Eventually most of the ferries were replaced by bridges or tunnels.  The ones that still exist seem to be in areas where the population is too low to justify the cost of building a bridge.

On the other side, we still had several miles to Grafton.  It was a relief to see this sign!

Our hotel was perched up on the bluff above Grafton.  When I was booking it, I knew it was up a “bit of a hill”…I just didn’t know it was up a mountain!!!  As soon as we turned onto the street it was on, it was an immediate uphill. We couldn’t see the top of the hill. There were no signs pointing us to the resort at all.  It was steep, steep, steep.  We thought that the first buildings we came to were surely our stop…nope.  But once we stopped to check -we couldn’t get back on the bikes to keep riding…. It is impossible to get a bike moving on a hill like that from a dead stop… so up and up and up and up we went pushing our bikes.  I was checking with Nicky, but her description of where we needed to go was confusing.  It was only after we got to the top that I could see what she was trying to tell me.  

On our way up, the resort owner stopped us to ask us what we were doing, and saying we couldn’t ride a bike up there…  You got that right Mister!  What was your first clue?  When he found out we were guests, he made sure to tell us he didn’t want us to ride our bikes down that hill the next day.  No problem… We don’t have a death wish!  I was already thinking that going down it in the van would be scary enough.

Nicky was waiting for us on the deck in front of the hotel room.  She had a view of the road we were coming up.  Here’s an “action” video of the moment she spotted Mike…   It says everything about that hill !!

As we came around that last bend and spotted Nicky on the deck, we also could see our car parked just ahead of us.  Because we still didn’t know exactly the room situation (and the owner had also told us that we were absolutely NOT allowed to put our bikes in the room overnight), we went to our car first…thinking we might have to put the bikes on the bike rack.

I’m not going to sugar-coat it -I was pretty ornery by the time we got to the top of that hill.

We ended up putting the bikes on the balcony in front of of our hotel room door area, locking them to the railing.  After we took care of our “bits and pieces” like we do after every ride, we sat down to have a cold drink and decompress for a bit,

After that, I walked around “at the top” to take a few pictures of the view.  This picture shows a part of the road we walked up -after it had started to level out near the top.

The view was really great. This is the Mississippi.

None of the buildings in this picture are at river level.

The resort has a ski-chair/gondola ride from the riverside up to the restaurant. 

We had a nice “dinner with a view” at the restaurant (a bit more up the hill than our room).  As guests, we got a free ride on the Gondola.  Nicky and I said. “Why not?”  Mike took a pass, saying he could see the views from where he was just fine. It was an enjoyable thing to do after dinner.   After we got to the turn-around point at ground level and were headed back to the top, I took this picture.  I’ve drawn an arrow on the picture to show where our hotel room and the restaurant were!

It was a long, frustrating day that had us questioning our life choices and eyeballing the van as if it were a lifeboat from the Titanic.  Abandon ship anyone?  (Spoiler Alert:  We didn’t)

Categories: MRT Bike Trip 2018, 2022 & 2026, Pleasant Hill, IL to Grafton, IL