If it's Thursday this must still be Illinois

I had no idea how long, how difficult or easy, how complicated this journey would be but I knew it was what I was called to do. Each day brings me new insights not only about myself but about this very strange almost alien culture we live in. My little blue car and I have seen some beautiful farmland edged with forests of oak and sycamore and we've seen beaver dams and sea gulls (yep, right there over the Carlyle Reservoir,) bald eagles, snakes, coyotes and more.

I've passed through many gray and somber small towns hugging the edges of the bluffs near the Illinois River and searched for the meeting tree in Vandalia where native tribes would meet each year to discuss their problems and settle grievances and feast. The other side of the road I drive is what is not seen, what is out of sight yet critical to this issue of whether we work together to surpass the need for fossil fuels or continue to bury our heads and butts in the sand and hope that disaster doesn't bite us before we can die naturally and leave this mess to those who come after. That's not very neighborly.
Here's the thing: from what I've been able to observe across Illinois, this pipeline (which is really a collective of various pipeline companies) is not finished.

Near Jacksonville, IL

There is still earth moving equipment at various locations, stacks of pipe and trucks hauling equipment and pipe. And you don't put up cardboard road signs to show trucks where to unload. I know that the citizens of Iowa are fighting the good fight as best they can and we need to support them (more about that tomorrow) so, Illinois, what's with you? Where are the protests? Where are the voices of dissension? I haven't seen them for sure. Why hasn't a BOLD Illinois Group formed to join the four other states seeking to halt yet another pipeline hauling oil through our heartland to the Gulf for export? I. Don't. Know. If you do, please educate me. All I see is complacence, acceptance, and like the lady at The Approach in Meredosia told me today: "Yeah, the pipeline, the cable, the new bridge, it's all good now and when it's done, there goes our business."

Outside Bluffs, IL

She gets that this is a short-term endeavor. So are fossil fuels with long-term ecological damage when something goes wrong as happened yesterday in Canton, Illinois. It gave me pause to realize that just today I passed less than 70 miles from Canton, I know it well, I lived for several years near there, got my degree in Macomb also close by. One person is dead and several injured. What does it take to wake us up?

In Bluffs, IL. Note the cardboard signs.

Till tomorrow, enjoy a couple of my rest stops today. I've crossed the Mississippi and resting my weary head in Keokuk, IA tonight.