Day 3 – July 7, 2021
Today the plan is to drive from St. Louis to Maryville, MO. We left around 9:30 this morning. Because we had decided not to travel on interstates or expressways, we took surface street to get out of St Louis and did not encounter much traffic. We made our way to the Great River Road (State highway 79) and headed north. This road runs next to the Mississippi River. There was hardly any other cars on the road. The road also runs between acres and acres of corn fields.
After driving for several hours, we saw a sign that pointed to a side road and said “Scenic overlook with table”. We turned down this road and after driving a little way? There was a pullout with a picnic table. We stopped and ate lunch. There were nobody around. After lunch, we drove farther down the road and there was the scenic overlook. It looked out over the Mississippi River. We stopped, took pictures and then continued on our journey.
When we reached Hannibal, we turned west onto US 36. This road is a divided four lane highway. It did not have a lot of traffic either. For the most part, the road is very straight. We were going to stop at the Locust Creek Covered Bridge near Laclede, MO, but it was pouring down rain and I missed the turn. Since it was raining so hard, we decided not to try to turn around and go back, we just skipped it. We eventually turned north to head to Maryville, MO.
