Chapter 22 Cairo, The Confluence, Entering Kentucky, Farmer Philosopher

I entered Illinois at the northernmost edge and I will leave at the southernmost tip.  I have left hilly but pretty Missouri for boring but flat Illinois. The last 30 miles pass through Cairo (pronounced kay-row) a once important transportation, milling and lumber center that is located near the confluence of the two greatest rivers in the United States, the Mississippi and the Ohio. Something seriously happened to Cairo. Today it is a ghost town.  It is eerie and empty with once proud and substantial buildings standing vacant and boarded up amidst vacant lots with traces of foundations suggesting what once was. In fact, I had folks upriver who warned me not to go there. I would not say it was dangerous by any measure just really down on it's luck.  It once had a population of  at least 25,000 and now a tenth that.

Magnolia Mansion

Nonetheless, I toured "Magnolia Mansion" in the historic district (or what is left of it). Somehow it had survived to become a museum that stood as a reminder of  it's former heyday. I nearly had to wake up the lonely tour guide on duty who was eager to finally have someone stop by.  It is quite a impressive home once to a successful merchant of flour. It is filled with original furnishings and has separate servants quarters.  It is interesting to see these great homes built to impress as a result of some unglamorous but important and profitable enterprise.

A lookout at the confluence of the
Mississippi and Ohio Rivers

That night I spent at Fort Defiance State Park a couple miles south of Cairo which occupies the very tip of the peninsula separating the two mighty rivers.   It was here that Lewis and Clark spent five days preparing to ascend the Mississippi for the first time. They practiced learning how to use their navigation instruments and used this point as a "fix" for all future navigation. Like Cairo, the State Park is deserted. I recall that this State has no money.  The so called 16 campsites available have nearly been erased by mother nature and any facilities once here are derelict and  broken.  No water, no toilets, no lights.  The good side of the coin is that it is free and I have the entire park to myself that night with no one around to bother me except 10,000 mosquitos who hold a vigil all night on the outside of the netting.

The next morning I have a more scary prospect facing me.  The bridge across the Ohio River to Kentucky is old, narrow and long with a steady stream of heavy traffic rumbling across.  The guidebook advises I obtain police escort to safely cross. Seriously?  When I see the bridge I know he is right.  Providentially, earlier in the day I had a fellow patron overhear my plans at a cafe and he asked me when I planned to cross.  He gave me his name and number and volunteered without my asking to drive me across.  Sure enough at 7:30 that morning he pulls up in his pick up and we load up everything including Murphy and safely make it to The Bluegrass State of Kentucky.  More and more often as I head further south this sort of thing happens.  Folks here are genuinely helpful.
Kentucky borders the Mississippi River for only about 70 miles.

Near Columbus, KY.

The terrain I am biking through is bucolic, rolling hills, small farms, pastures and tree filled bottomlands. When I arrive in the first small community of Columbus I meet "Jim" the philosopher farmer at the cafe where he is holding court. He looks like Ernest Hemmingway and instantly befriends me and Murphy.  He is eloquent, and refreshingly insightful as to the ways of the world.  He told me how he organized a fight to stop a mega trash dump/landfill from being located in Columbus some years ago. Apparently the clay soils, sparse population and proximity to the river and rail made it attractive.  The promoters thought the lure of jobs and the promise of liberal payments to local government would be placate the populace. Jim convinced the populace otherwise. It was stopped due to local opposition.  Now he is retired from farming and spends his time educating ignorant passersby such as myself.  I learned that Columbus was once proposed by Thomas Jefferson as a more geographically central location for the U.S. Capitol and that it failed to pass congress by one vote.  Somewhere else I read that this never happened and was just local lore. Columbus is also near Belmont State Park that was my first actual Civil War battleground site. For most people such places bring to mind hours wasted in boring high school history class but I was the nerd who liked history class and asked all the questions.  It was here that confederate forces attempted to block passage of the Mississippi to Union Forces.

The commanding view from the bluff.

They built fortifications on a bluff overlooking a bend in the river and stretched a mile long chain across the river.  The chain idea failed when it broke due to the current but eventually the Union Forces led by an obscure officer named U.S. Grant routed the  confederate garrision in an audacious attack earning him the attention of his superiors. The place changed hands a couple more times until finally the Union held it for the remainder of the war.
I stayed in the park campground for a couple nights.  It happened to be hosting a conclave of "R-Pods" a peculiar travel trailer that everyone had.  These R-Podders were super friendly and from all over the country. Murphy and I were adopted by them and joined in on the festivities that night including a pot-luck for which I ate plenty but could bring nothing. Reality was I was starving at the  time.

Our R-Pod buffet night.