Woke around 6 am – ate a quick breakfast and spend the morning
writing. It was raining when I woke up,
so was not in a hurry to head out. As
the 11 am checkout time approached I ate my left over pizza from Pizza &
Subs of Rock Island, and finished packing, and the rains stopped. I got a call from the front desk at 10:55
reminding me it was checkout time and thanked the lady and told I would be
right out. Had everything packed and
ready to go by 11:01, turned in my key, and headed back down to the River in
downtown Rock Island. I didn’t have a
particular destination in mind for my travels on this day, but had hoped to get
some miles in.
After good nights sleep – I think this was the first night
of the trip I slept through the night – the area did not seem as bad as it did
the night before. There still were many
signs of poverty in the neighborhoods I went through – housing in poor shape,
people coming out of the plasma donor center on a Sunday morning, and shops
catering to folks without much money – like a used tire dealer, a drive up tobacco
shop, etc. Heading down the slight
inclined road, I wondered where most folks in the area worked, if they worked
for some of the factories along the river, or what brought the immigrants and
people of color to the community. I also
swung through the Rock Island downtown district which was scattering of
nightclubs, bars, restaurants, some shops, and other places where folks could
spend their money.
I decided to cross the river via the Rock Island Bridge and
after crossing it noticed the gate to the Rock Island Arsenal located below the
railroad bridge with a fading “Rock Island Line” still visible on the old steel
railroad bridge that ran over the top of the entry road to the gate. A man on a bike stopped and asked me about my
travels. After talking, I asked him
about entry to the Arsenal and he said it was open to anyone, you just needed
to provide the security guard with an ID and then you were free to roam. He said he had not been through it in about a
year, but suggested that I check out the cemetery. I thanked him for his information and decided
to detour through the base.
After showing the guard my driver’s license, which he
apparently scanned a copy of with a portable scanner, I asked if I could go
anywhere on base. He told me I could,
but that I would have to come back out through the same gate, as the other gates
were closed. As soon as I entered, I
stopped to start taking some pictures of some of the military equipment
stockpiled in lots next to the road.
There appeared to be a multitude of some kind of generator housings on
one side of the road and military trailer with some painted the standard camouflage
dark green and others the more common tan camouflage colors.
Then came the huge military industrial complexes where
various weapons and accoutrements of war have been built over the years. The buildings were immense, and seemed to go
on, and on for many thousands of feet. There
were many large exhaust stacks, which I assumed must be for some type of
foundry operations used to cast some of the large guns that were on display
outside of some of the buildings. There
were probably miles of 8’ tall chain link fence topped with rows of barbed wire
surrounding the buildings. It was difficult to image why the buildings
needed to be so large, and what weapons of mass destruction had come out of
their doors. I also wondered how many
people lost their lives as a result, and how much profits were made from the
manufacturing process.
There was also a plethora of various types of support
buildings located adjacent to the manufacturing facilities. The all were built from the same sand stone
block construction method, and housed everything from the Edgewood Biological Chemical
Building, to various offices run by various Generals, to Human Resources, to
Warrior Reintroduction Training Centers.
Next came an outside display of some of the various artillery
that the Arsenal had played a roll in manufacturing through the years. They were all laid out in a semi-circular
formation and included the likes of various weapons made from all the great
wars including World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, and even some of the more modern
equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan. The
weapons included the likes of some early tanks used in World War II, anti-aircraft
“guns”, rocket launchers, howitzers, and the grand experimental atomic cannon designed
to fire both convention and nuclear shells up to 18 miles. Some of the weapons on display were rejects
that never made it to production for battle purposes because designers didn’t
realize that requiring the operators to leave the armored tank to reload the anti-tank
guns might be harmful to their health, or that the tanks were too heavy to be air
lifted to the place where the battles were occurring, or that improvements in
rocket science would replace the simpler “guns”.
While walking around the weapons, it was interesting to
watch the children playing on and around the weapons. I recalled doing similar “play” when I was a
kid and my family was visiting some military memorial or another where an old
tank was display. I guess getting kids interested
in war games at an early age, helps for recruitment purposes later in
life. Unfortunately, these toys are
designed to kill people who for some reason or another we don’t like and decide
that it is ok to kill them, something that gets glossed over in the placards
used to glorify the weapons. Dark clouds started to fill the sky, and amongst
the burst of lighten and thunder, rain began to fall.
The women and children and fathers abandoned the weapons,
and ran for their cars. I went back to
my bike and donned my rain gear and headed to the picnic shelter set up next to
the weapon display. There was also more
typical playground equipment for the kids to play on, along with a baseball
field. I ate some lunch and watched the
other folks gathered under the shelter.
There were two youngsters, probably a year and a half or so, and other
who was probably 3. As the rains
subsided they began walking around in the parking lot, playing in the water puddles,
and laughing. They would jump in the
water, reach down and touch it with their hands, let the water dripping off the
roof land on their heads, and just enjoy the wetness of it all. The parents would scold them, and tell them “gross”
when they touched the water, or tell them to get out of the puddles when they
walked in, but they ignored their parent’s warnings and had some fun. At one point the grandfather pointed out to
them that the grass needs water to grow, and then one of the kids told him that
it also needs sunshine, and the grandpa added dirt as a third requirement for
growth to occur. And then the state of
joy came to an end when the two kids collided with each other which brought out
some cries and tears, and playtime was over.
The parents packed them in their vans, said goodbye to the grandparents,
and went on to the next stop.
With the rains passed, I continued my own tour. Next to the gun memorial, were some support
buildings for military families that lived on the island. There was a Child Development Center, with a
warning sign located in front of it that read “Warning. Excavation of soil, underground construction,
and installation of underground wells restricted.” I assumed there must have been some type of contamination
on the site that was not to be disturbed, in case it might harm the youngsters
who spent their days at the Development Center.
This struck me as pretty crazy that we find it acceptable to bring our
children, to our complexes where we make weapons to kill people with, but we
don’t want any harm to come to them from the wastes that got dumped in the
manufacturing process.
Maybe it isn’t crazy, but simply not thinking, or finding
ways to distract ourselves from the insanity of it all that explains why we do
the stupid things we do and keep on doing them over and over again. A good example of the distraction was the
golf course that runs along the North side of the island. It is doubtful if any of the folks out
golfing for the day were too concerned with what contaminants lurked beneath their
playground, nor where the group of folks wearing matching yellow shirts playing
Frisbee Football on the East end of the island.
I also wondered if all the war veterans and their wife’s who
joined them six feet under in the tens of thousands of military graves with
matching white tombstones laid out in intricate orderly lines understood the
insanity of it all. I had a feeling that
many of the one thousand nine hundred and sixty Confederate Civil War prisoners
who had died from disease while interned at the prisoner of war camp located on
the island from 1863 to 1865 probably understood the insanity of war. Unfortunately they didn’t live to warn us. So instead we raise “Old Glory” on a really
high flagpole over all the dead Privates and believe that honors them, and we
keep on developing new technologies to kill more of the enemies of their
ancestors, for there are profits to make in war.
And after all that, I
needed some distraction myself and rode off and found an old house that used to
belong to some Cornel who was stationed on the island some time ago. A tour of the cottage cost $5 and I wasn’t in
the mood to spend more money or take the hour long tour, so chatted briefly
with the two ladies who were guiding tours and selling memorabilia at the gift
shop. I asked them if the hot and muggy
weather was typical for the middle of May and they said it was not. They went from winter, to summer, with no
real spring. The upper eighties and high
humidly was more typical of their July days.
And this just reminded me how we have messed up the planet, with all the
CO2 emissions from all are consumption of the cheap fuel we have been burning to
make all the stuff we consume.
It was time to leave the island, and it was nearly 3
pm. My plans of getting some mileage in
and reaching Iowa, were not going to be met if I stuck around Rock Island
Arsenal much longer, so I headed out the gate and crossed the metal truss
bridge that carried trains on the upper deck, cars below, and pedestrian and
bicyclists off to the walkway on the side.
At the other end of the bridge I entered the State of Iowa via the third
of the Quad Cities – Davenport. I didn’t
spend much time there, noticed the gambling boat docked further to the south,
and took a picture of the downtown area and an old mansion on the top of a
hill.
And then I was in the fourth of the Quads – Bettendorf –
which as a sign pointed out is only 361 miles from St. Paul. The wind was really getting strong coming off
the river and slowing me way down. And
the heat and humidity were definitely on the high ends of the scale. As I stopped to admire the Interstate 80
Bridge over the Mississippi River, another biker stopped to ask about my
journeys and where I might go tonight. I
told him I was thinking about finding out how much a room was at the casino
hotel located North of the bridge and asked if he knew how much a room
cost. He wasn’t sure. So I stopped in and asked. The Hotel clerk told me if I would go over to
the casino and sign of for a membership card, I could get a room for $29 for
the night. I asked if that meant I had
to gamble and she said no. I also asked
if it was ok for me to bring my bike to my room, and she told me that what you
bring into your room with you is your business.
So I journeyed across the enclosed air conditioned walkway
that took me to the gambling “boat” which is actually just a windowless barge moored
in the river and made to look like a river boat. I tried to find the “guest services” window
the clerk told me about, and was almost lured in the slot machines by the mind
numbing chiming sounds coming out the rows and rows of high tech gambling paraphernalia. I fought of my urge to gamble, made it to the
guest server who simply took my driver’s license and took down my data, and
gave me the ticket to a cheap night’s stay at a very nice hotel. I also found out that the card also gave me
$5 off the all you can eat “Grand Buffet” where I went after I went for a jog
along the river.
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