August 13th, 2026
St. James, Missouri
Woke at 8:00am and got ready quickly for once.
Loaded up the bike and was already dripping sweat when I
finished.
Checked out of the motel and got my deposit back, then rode
over to the highway that will take me to the Interstate. Was just after 9:00am, so ahead of schedule.
The original route here is no longer drivable over the
river, most of the earlier routes are like that. So, I will use the modern Interstate to get
across the river and then pick up the route on the other side.
We got across, and due to road works, had to use the exit a
mile farther down and back track to reach the road that was formerly Route 66
in the 1930s, which is the main route I am following today.
My first stop was the west end of Chain of Rocks Bridge,
which was accessible via a nice little park.
I parked the bike and hiked about ¼ mile up the path and
onto the bridge. It was a bit far to go
to reach the curve in the bridge, but at least was able to get some photos.
I did find an information board that said the bridge was in
operation until the interstate was opened in 1970, at which time it was closed
to traffic. The lack of value in the
steel at the time made the cost to tear it down prohibitive, so it was left in
place and later was repurposed as a pedestrian/bicycling pathway in the late
1990s.
I then started south on the route and almost immediately the
surroundings turned ugly.
While some of the areas were basic residential neighborhoods
and small business, just in old buildings that had seen better days, much of
the route was burned out, gutted or boarded up buildings, homes (nice large
mansion style houses) and apartment blocks.
Hardly anyone around, not even that many cars parked along
the streets. Appears much of the
properties are abandoned. Those that
were lived in looked like the probably shouldn’t be.
To make things even worse, the road conditions were
abysmal. I think the gravel roads in
Alaska were smoother. Missouri is on its
way to beat Illinois for the shittiest roads.
And to top it off, while riding this less than nice areas,
there are stop signs or stop lights about every 2 blocks, and I caught EVERY
light red for at least 20 lights. And
the red lights here last at least 1 minute on average.
This went on until I reached downtown St. Louis, which while
the grand buildings of the early 1900s and some more modern construction
created a nice skyline, the place was really not much better. Empty or run down and not a huge amount of
activity.
Traffic did increase, but few people out walking about. The road constructions crews even had
security on site with them. Not sure
what that says about the city.
I finally reached the turn to head down to the river. Passed
through another area that was sketchy as hell, mainly warehouses or factories,
not sure if in use or not.
Reached the river frontage and this was nicely done up. A huge wall of mural/graffiti artworks, and
then the road that runs along the shore in front of the Gateway Arch.
The area along the shore is a parking lot, and it was $11 to
park, so I decided not to park and walk around, and probably not a good place
to leave the bike and gear anyway.
I rode past the Arch, turned around and rode back, then
stopped and parked illegally for 1 minute to take a few photos. It was early, no one around, no harm done.
Retraced my route back to the Route 66 and headed
southwest. While slightly better, was
still pretty beat up area of town.
Eventually we reached the suburbs and things improved, lots
of more modern buildings and business were full and active.
Final opinion is if you are doing Route 66, just skip St
Louis. Unless you really want to go see
the Gateway Arch, or some other site that might be in town, there is nothing to
see and the route is basically a huge waste of time. Its really just a tour of the ghettos of the
city.
Only reason to ride it would be if you are a dumb completist
that wants to do all of something….wait, that sounds a little too close to
home.
As for the Arch, you can use the 1950s alignments that will
bring you across the river right into downtown and save a lot of time and
riding through nothing.
I stopped on the very edge of town to fuel up and then the
route joins Interstate 44 here, the next 15 miles most of the original road is
now under that freeway.
I did turn off at one exit though to visit the remains of a
small town (Sylvan Beach) which is now the Route 66 information center. You drive a short distance on the old road,
and it ends at what is left of the bridge over the river. All within site of the modern interstate.
I parked at the building and walked over to the bridge to
see what was left, took photos and recorded some video.
As I walked back to the bike, two women were walking up to
it and asked if I was the Arizona rider (another bike in the parking lot as
well).
We started talking.
Thinking the one was local to the area, but the other was a woman from
Japan. Turns out she had studied for
some time at ASU in Tempe, AZ. She had
seen the license plate on the bike.
They wanted to get a picture of her and me with the bike,
and later just me and the bike. We
talked a bit about my ride and future travel plans and I was told to definitely
visit Japan (I is in the plans someday).
Once we finished talking, I went inside while they went over
to the bridge (and I think there might be a small trail over there too).
I walked around the gift shop a bit and then talked to the
lady running the center. Missouri did
not create a state specific passport booklet with all the various sites like
Illinois did. They had the standard blue
passport and the gold centennial passports, but not only are they quite
expensive, but they only cover a handful of spots in each state, whereas the
state specific book is just as many pages and covers just that one state.
She did have a pad of tear off maps that covered some of the
major sites along the route between St. Louis and Oklahoma City, and went over
the Missouri stuff and mentioned a few other places along the way.
I then walked the small museum on site, and then left the
building and got back on the bike to continue.
We got back on the interstate, and then a few miles later
got off and started to follow the various parts of the routes still drivable,
mostly local or county roads now.
The route again ran parallel to the freeway, like a frontage
road for much of the distance, but occasionally would curve off a mile or so to
pass through a small town or just for terrain reasons.
You do cross from the north to the south and back to the
north of I-44 quite a few times as it followed the Route 66 route (which was a
4 lane road toward the end of its time) and cut the old route in pieces, so you
jump back and forth, and of course lots of extra curves and routes to get
around those spots. Probably 40% of the
pavement has nothing to do with the old routing, just working around the modern
freeway.
I stopped at an old gas station to take some photos and then
went inside. Started to talk with the
guy in there and asked when it was last in service, and turns out this place is
just a modern recreation. The building
was a generic place built to be used as a church which closed down several
years back.
This guy bought the building and converted it to look like a
period service station and put filled it with lots of period antiques and other
pieces. I think much of it his personal
collection.
He hangs out in the place a few days a week and just talks
to people. One way to retire, I guess.
Bit later we left the route and headed south a few miles to
reach the Meramec Caverns.
These caves have been known since at least the mid-1800s and
were tourist spots even before Route 66 existed. They were used by Jesse James and his partner
after robbing places in the Missouri area, which gives them some colorful
history.
I arrived at the parking lot and secured and covered the
bike. Going to take another risk as I
will be inside for about 2 hours.
I wore my riding jacket again as the caves are pretty chilly
here in Missouri, typically only about 55-60 degrees inside. It is nice to have the jacket on when in
there, though the humidity was high in this cave, so still made me sweat.
I went into the main building which houses the café, the
gift shop and the entrance to the cavern.
The cavern opening was quite large, and the building was basically built
right in front of it.
The first few hundred feet of the space is huge, and even
cars could drive inside back in the day (they actually did). It had been mined a bit as well for Saltpeter
during the Civil war, so that probably opened up some areas as well.
The floor is now all paved for the first bit, lit and
signage and line control barriers setup at the main entrance. You buy your ticket and then wait till the
next tour starts. They run every 30
minutes.
I thankfully only had to wait about 5 minutes and we got
started.
A guide takes you through the cavern, giving local history
and information, with a focus on the Jesse James connection, as well as some
geologic background on some of the formations later in the cave.
The route has a paved path and railings to basically guide
you along, and they turn on and off lights as you move through, so always dark
in front and behind you.
You visit the lower chambers first, which are damper as the
river runs through this area, you can hear it running near the area where the
cavern heads toward the larger river next to the parking lot (the cave river
enters that river, but via a siphon, so no above ground chamber on the river). The only entry point in that area had been
paved over when the lot was created.
The caves water system originates in a natural underground
spring about 16 miles away and the caves is also that large, but we will only
see the first ¾ miles of that distance.
Once done, we head up into another chamber that was found
years later when someone detected a crack in the wall and they busted
through. They found some amazing, and
quite rare formations in this area, one that is so rare it really should not
exist, and is one of only two formations of this type in the world (that we
know about anyway).
This section of the caves is a lot of upward ramps, and then
you walk around a massive stalagmite (500 feet in circumference) that has
gotten so large it reached the ceiling and cut off the flow of water to one
side which has now dried out.
Geologists estimate that this formation is about 33 million years old.
Once you finish there, you have to walk up 58 steps to reach
the small chamber with the unique formation that sits inside. Just look at the photo, too difficult to
explain it in words.
Once done, you walk back down, and then sit in a small
theater like setup for a light show and short film and light show.
Then you exit the cave.
It was a great cave though.
The group about 20 people, so small enough to let people get out of the
way for many photos, though sometimes you still had to take pictures with
people in them.
I spent some time talking with the guide between his
speeches. Besides some specific
questions on the caverns, turned out he was a motorcyclist as well, so we ended
up talking bikes.
While we were waiting in the theater for another small group
that was just behind us that they wanted to join our group for the film to
avoid showing it to the small group alone, we again talked bikes as he asked
for questions from people and no one asked any, so I just picked up
conversation again.
After exiting the cavern, I went over to the café to eat, I
had not had any food all day and it was not about 3:00pm.
Had a large burger and fries and a drink.
After eating, I stopped to talk with another couple who was
riding as well. I had seen them briefly
at that fake gas station a few miles back, and the guy inside has told me they
were from the UK.
We talked a bit about the heat and humidity, and some about
routing and such. They are heading west
as well, so very high chance we might bump into each other again. They are staying about 15 miles away, so
depending on when we both leave, could cross paths down the road some.
I then went out, got on the bike and headed back to the
interstate and picked up the access road again.
Rest of the ride was basically just small towns.
I missed one of the old gas stations, and did not feel like
turning around to see it, saw enough to get the idea.
A few other old or well-known buildings that I decided were
not big enough deals to stop for photos.
I did pull over in Cuba, MO to get the Missouri 66 sign with
the bike, then kept going.
I was getting tired, so skipped stopping at the big rocking
chair (once the largest working chair in the world, but now just the largest on
Route 66.)
Reached the small town I am staying in and found the motel.
Went to check in and it was another unstaffed place.
They had a kiosk that I tried to use, but was giving me
issues, then I noticed another sign that if I had made a reservation via 3rd
party, I should have an email or message with the code for the door.
I checked and had that, so went to the room it listed and
the doors have keypads on them.
Instead of a physical key or keycard, you just punch in the
code and the door opens.
I moved the bike over to the room and unloaded it.
Then sat inside and tried to cool down for an hour or
so. I literally sat next to the AC unit
which was down by the floor in the hall to the bathroom.
I then needed to go get something to drink, was almost out
of water as well.
Put the jacket back on and rode out to the main road, only
to notice the large fuel station/store right next to the Burger King which is
behind the motel. I could have just
walked over. But this was easier since I
was buying water as well.
Bought the gallon of water, and 4 bottles of tea. Not sure I will drink them all tonight, but
will have something for the morning ride then.
Back at the room I changed out of the riding gear and sat to
cool off again while looking at things online.
I then decided I was hungry enough to get food around 7:30,
so walked over to the Burger King after securing and covering the bike (was
just too hot earlier, sun was hitting the parking lot directly).
Had to stand in line for almost 10 minutes while the guy and
lady in front of me ordered everything on the menu (or so it seemed) as between
them they had 8 kids to feed. They were
ordering separately, so guessing they were coming from some kind of youth event
or something, all the kids were roughly same age.
Then of course I had to wait to get my food, was about 20-25
minutes. They must have messed up
something, I did not hear exactly what he said, but they gave me double the
cheese bites because I waited so long.
I sat down to eat, then went up to get some ranch for the
cheese bites. They gave it to me, but
she said they normally would charge for them, guess they have started doing
that now as well, so guess I will not be eating much at Burger King anymore.
Then as I started my sandwich, I realized a few bites in
that it was the wrong one. Receipt was
correct, so they just made wrong sandwich.
But as they are same price, and I had the extra food from the delay, I
was not going to argue the point.
Finished eating and came back to the room to plan tomorrow’s
route.
Kind of wishing I had thought about doing this all long
before the ride. It takes 1-2 hours to
go over the maps to find the correct routes based on the various alignments,
plot them into Google Maps (no “follow Route 66” option) and send them to my
phone so I can pull them up later (and it takes 3-4 maps to get the route to
stay put and not constantly get re-routed back to the Interstate, something
that Maps is really starting to piss me off about.)
I then have to review the route to mentally note the various
stops or possible stops so I can be watching for them while I ride (and I still
miss a few each day).
After that I am writing the blog for tonight, but again,
will not upload it as that process takes time and its already late enough.
Tomorrow I will get almost to the end of Missouri and will
spend 2 nights there so I can catch up on some things and hopefully stay off
the bike for at least 1 day. My hands,
wrists and knees are hurting a bit more than they should, so need a rest.
Catch ya down the road.
Todays Route:
