US 136 has been our friend for so many miles across Indiana and Illinois that we continued to use it as our highway toward the Missouri River as we resumed our journey this morning from the west banks of the Mississippi at Keokuk, Iowa.

If you look at the map you see that Keokuk is at the extreme southeast border of Iowa, just above Missouri and just across the river from Illinois. US. 136 traverses Missouri from east to west, just below the Iowa border.

This picture, taken as we proceeded west on US 136, is typical of much of the terrain we passed through today in northern Missouri. We were surprised to find it to be quite hilly, with lots of trees, broken by small farms and pasture lands; not the broad, flat expanses of farms and fields we had expected.