Picture of I-255 on the Illinois side (runs east to west)
You can see the Mississippi River and the JB Bridge on the left side (the left/west side of the picture is MO and of course the right/east side is IL) Coleman lives by the triangle/clover shaped intersection - if you zoom in you can see the large lake directly east of the heart of the triangle/clover intersection.
Chester is to the south (but is too far away to be in this shot) - it is about 50 miles directly south
If you look on the MO side you see the first exits very close to the river.
To the right (north) is a tear drop loop - that is a old vacant rest stop
and to the right you will see two loops with one inside the other. If you go down the road along the river you will see a vacant lot with numerous roads in it (the roads are hard to see now because of weed growth). That is where the old Koch Hospital use to be. (you will see a large area of white colored land farther south of the old hospital land. The white area of land is a active quarry.)
It is very easy to access these (to get off and back on the highway) and no one really goes down in that area since the old rest stop is closed and over grown with weeds and the old Koch Hospital land is where kids use to hang out at night before the hospital was tore down about 10 years ago. (there are many human bones in the area in pits - google Koch Hospital St. Louis to learn more about it)
http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=13&Z=15&X=462&Y=2663&W=3&qs=|columbia|illinois|
You could not stop on the JB bridge without someone noticing you and if you wanted to toss something out into the river you would have to get out of your car. That bridge is pretty busy at that time in the morning - not bumper to bumper of course but at least 10 cars at a time may be on the bridge at that time of day and you can see all lanes clearly no matter what lane you are in. (it is a 6 lane bridge - 3 lanes on each side and very wide open with a full view around you including way in front of you)
also if you pulled over on the bridge shoulder and got out of your car you would have to walk to the rear or front of your car to reach the wall on the side of the bridge. You would have to step up and lean somewhat across the rail at the top of the wall to toss something into the river. If someone saw you they would take notice as you would look like you were someone about to jump off the bridge. Also there is a pretty good size sand bar that comes out from the northeast side of IL at the bridge. (LOL - I wonder if the dip**** threw it onto the sand bar and he thought he hit the water - that sand bar could really fool someone who was in a hurry.)
Koch pronounced Coke
here is a view as you go across it from the IL side to the MO side (traveling west)
