Look, I love long days of walking through beautiful countryside. Some of those stretches along Illinois’s canals, even as they pushed double-digit miles between cold drinks, were beautiful enough on their own to keep me humming along for hours. But even then, there’s some degree of diminishing returns. It is possible to have too much of a good thing, or more to the point, of one good thing. What made today spectacular, by contrast, was the combination of three wonderful, distinctly different things.
First, I got to pay my second visit to the mighty Mississippi on the American Discovery Trail, after previously crossing it in Saint Louis. And indeed, I was riding the river on a steamboat just six weeks ago, from its southern terminus in New Orleans. Coincidentally enough, on the latter trip, we were trying to understand the growing crisis of coastal erosion, and the blame for that was placed, to a significant degree, on the region’s levee system. The problem with this, it turns out, is that when the Mississippi is systematically prevented from flooding, the opportunity is lost for it to layer silt back onto the banks. Instead, it’s all withdrawals, with no deposits, like the American economy, and in the process Louisiana is going down the drains.
Well, no such problem in Illinois and Iowa! The torrential storms of two nights past that threatened the region with tornadoes also triggered heavy flooding in this region, to the point that today’s walk was disrupted at multiple points when the trail was deep underwater. Mercifully, those disruptions qualified as little more than minor inconveniences (in particular, I was still able to reach Milltown Coffee, which was awesome), though they are certain to pose more significant challenges tomorrow.
Second, just south of the Mississippi, in the heart of Moline, is the John Deere Pavilion–a monument to the inventor and his earth-changing equipment. While Deere was born in Vermont, he ultimately established roots in Moline, and secured his immortality with the invention of the first successful steel plow, commemorated historically as “the plow that broke the plains.” Deere is the rare 19th-century inventor who actually got to enjoy the fruits of his labor, with his factory growing to the point that it was selling more than 10,000 plows annually by 1855. In time, he passed it onto his son. While the pavilion includes a few older pieces of equipment, it’s the newer machinery that dominates the room and highlights just how far the technology has come. As an added treat, it’s possible to climb into the cockpit of the most impressive pieces. One little kid was running around the place, complete with a John Deere hat and a toy tractor. It was his birthday. (Also coincidentally, it turns out that John Deere is in the news today for other reasons.)
Finally, after crossing the Mississippi into Davenport, I had the joy of visiting the Figge Art Museum, which conveniently enough is offering free visits throughout the month of July. I had passed on visiting the Art Institute of Chicago’s incredible collection when I was in the city, wanting to limit my time on my feet on my day off, but with a short walk today and free admission, I couldn’t pass up the Figge.
The special exhibit currently features the works of Walter Wick, a children’s book author, illustrator, and photographer. I was initially skeptical of this “less serious art,” but I was sucked in by his technique–creating impressively detailed dioramas to serve as the settings for his photographs in order to achieve three-dimensional images. The exhibit included the dioramas and the finished products, and it was remarkable to see how the whole creative process played out. By contrast, the permanent collection is an eclectic mix, with some earlier European pieces, some works from New Spain, a section on the American West, more contemporary pieces that offered an impressive mix of creative perspectives, and a surprisingly large Haitian section.
It was the perfect way to cap off a great jaunt through Illinois, and an even better introduction to Iowa.
