Day 2: Franklin Park IL - Alton IL

They lied to us!  The BBC lied!  They said it would be only about 30 C today.  It topped out at 40.  This is OK when you're driving at 75 mph but less so when you are not.  Fortunately most of today was driving at 75 mph but the times when this wasn't possible were icky.  But Limestone Rest Are on I-55 does have this cute little Bridge to Nowhere:

More or less a straight run down I-55 once Kate the TwatNav had done her job of avoiding the roads which want money for being driven on.  Now I really ought to have visited Cahokia Mounds before, since they are located close to both the Chain of Rocks bridge and the World's Largest Catsup Bottle in Collinsville, but I'd not heard of them back in 2016.  Anyway, they are the site of the largest pre-Columbian settlement north of the Rio Grande.  You can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia

One of the smaller mounds

For once the White Man cannot be blamed for it being abandoned because that happened a hundred and fifty or so years before C Clumbus didn't discover America.  All that's left are the mounds.  Boy, could those Cahokians mound.

The so-called "Monks Mound".  The trees in the foreground are Quite Big.

And henge, for they had a wood henge too, though the reconstruction looks like a somewhat sparse telegraph pole farm.

A HENGE?
</Flanders_&_Swann>

It was too hot to see whether the same mysterious mystery applies to this one as does to its Wiltshire namesake, viz. if you count the outer circle markers going one way there are one fewer than if you count 'em the other.  I'm sure drones have solved that one by now anyway.

Short blast north to the Lewis & Clark State Historic Site in Hartford.  This was the site of Camp Dubois, where the expedition spent the winter of 1803-4 getting organised before setting off across the Mighty Mississippi and up the Missouri, which confluence is almost bang opposite the site.  There's a monument there, and if you fight through the undergrowth you can get almost to the bank of the Mighty Mississippi and see, well, not very much.

The start of the whole thing

In the foreground, the Mighty Mississippi.  If my geog. is korekt the Missouri is the wet bit emerging  from between the taller trees.

A bit further upstream is the rather spiffy Confluence Tower.  You can't actually see the spot where the rivers meet from the base of the tower, because there's both a levee and a tree in the way, and to ascend the tower requires both the expenditure of money and there being someone around to take it off you.  Which it appeared there was not.  They've got a spiffy mural too.

Found 'em!

Alton is only a few miles up the road from Hartford and is mostly notable for being the birthplace of Robert Wadlow, a chap too tall as to make 3D Thomas look, like, really titchy.  He stood 2.72m or 8'11".  Statue is life-size.  Anyway, it was still too hot to do more than just snap 'is picture before returning to the hotel to hug the aircon unit.

Forecast for tomorrow is mid-twenties & thundery showers.  We will see...