2004/04 Boston and South Carolina trip - Fisherman's Corner |
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Thursday 29th April
The scenery became flatter as we crossed into Ohio, skirted Cincinnati, and headed west across Indiana and around Indianapolis. This isn’t the most exciting area even in summer, as it’s crop field after crop field.
At this time of the year there weren’t even crops up to look at! This made for a long day, as both of us had to drive all day and be awake and rest at the same times.
Illinois looked much the same as Indiana, and we drove west across the state around Champaign and Peoria. Peoria used to be famous for being the average American city, so it was always the place to launch new products. “Will it sell in Peoria?” You don’t hear that anymore though. Perhaps its fame compromised its position as the average.
After 400 miles or so we came to the Mississippi River and camped at Fisherman’s 
Corner, a riverside campground run by the Army Corps of Engineers.
It overlooked one of their dams, and is probably a popular spot once the season opens. Even now there were some very large fish jumping in the river. We found out later that they were probably jumping carp, a species from Asia that’s got into the Mississippi. There have already been a couple of cases of them injuring fishermen in collisions, including one lady whose jaw was broken. Sounds like a fair fight to me.
Friday 30th April
The previous evening had looked stormy, and it rained most of the night. I 
took an early morning walk across the dam. The river was roaring below the dam. The view upstream of the I-80 bridge had disappeared into the wet fog. There was just one guy fishing and he had a flock of pelicans watching his every move.