North Through Illinois · · PAGE 11. 

July 22, 2019:  Driving north from Litchfield, Interstate 55 passes Springfield, the capitol of Illinois.  We got off the interstate briefly at two exits south of the city and did not see anything like the family-style restaurant we hoped for.  Looking at this MapSource GPS track, you can see we ended this GPS segment northwest of Peoria on Interstate 74 to have lunch.  The black dots on the yellow lines (highways) are small towns and communities.

North of Springfield at this intersection 127 miles north of Saint Louis, this sign shows the beginning of Interstate 155 going due north toward Peoria.  The I-55 main route turns northeast toward Chicago, not where we are going today.

About 15 miles north of the image below, we spotted a number of the wind-powered electric generators.  This area of Illinois is elevated, yet it is still relatively flat.  There is plenty of wind to keep these machines moving.  Farming is not the only way to live off the land.

This aerial view of the image of the windmills above shows the shadows of these giant power generators.  There are FOUR of them here that are best identified by the shadows on the ground.  That north/south road is county road 2400 located about one mile west of the interstate highway.

The end of Interstate 155 is where it connects to Interstate 74 only 32 miles north from the split with I-55 seen in the image above.

There is a bypass around Peoria marked as Interstate 474.  This exit is 99 miles from the western END of I-74 where it enters Iowa near Moline and Rock Island, Illinois.  Today we are taking the scenic route I-74 through the city of Peoria.

Descending toward the Illinois River, we are reminded that the State of Illinois has Riverboat Casino gambling.

This riverfront park on the eastern shore of the Illinois River has a good view of the steel truss bridge that carries I-74 past downtown Peoria.

This is the view at the western end of the truss bridge seen in the photo above..

As we passed through Peoria, we kept looking for a place to have lunch.  When we got out of the city and one exit past the  I-474  bypass, the next exit was chosen to look for a family-style restaurant.  We got lucky at this exit.

Here is the Jubilee Cafe located just north of exit 82 from I-74 on county road 18.  They do not take credit cards, only cash, but the food is very good country cooking.

I took another look at the Jubilee Cafe from a different angle from the Google photo car on the street.  I noticed the imagery date of July 2018 at the bottom of these two photos.  The shadows are right for a late lunch.  My GPS shows a data point when our car was parked on the same spot near the side entrance with the time stamp of 3:25 PM Central Time on July 22, 2019.  I know it was not our car since this image is ONE YEAR before our visit.  It sure is an amazing coincidence.

This is the last turn on I-74 in Illinois.  It is five miles to the state line, but I-74 continues into Iowa.

This image is on I-74 in the city of Moline, Illinois just ONE mile from the state line with Iowa in the middle of the Mississippi River.

This winter image shows the new interstate highway bridges under construction on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River here in the Quad Cities.

This is a view approaching the state line from the south in the middle of the Mississippi River between Moline, Illinois on the south side of the river and Bettendorf, Iowa on the north side of the river.

I tried to get a Google Earth image of these signs located on the bridge from the northbound lanes, but the reflected glare from the sun washed out the Iowa sign.  I jumped over to the southbound lane in Google Earth and got this clean image.