The state of Missouri was someplace I planned on just blasting
through and my first experiences this morning didn't instill any
desire to linger. It was flat and ugly. Before today I didn't
realize that there are some pretty fun roads and the state starts
getting hilly as you head northwest. I took one wrong turn that
added probably 40 miles to my route but luckily I corrected my
mistake by taking Hwy 49 and this turned out to be what was arguably
the most entertaining road of the day. It was twisty with 40-50
mph sweepers and almost no traffic.
 And speaking
of wrong turns... Well, it wasn't actually a wrong turn
because it was part of the route I had calculated sitting at
my computer a few days ago, 700 miles away. Well, the road I
was on turned out to be a dirt road through a private hunting
lease. The dirt part I liked, the possibility of playing someone's
moving target was an experience I will save for a later time.
The gps comes in handy at times like these. Unless I was carrying
a topo map for this area, finding an alternate route would have
been tricky. Typical roadmaps just don't have the detail or
coverage for roads this small and I really don't like backtracking.
It is far more adventurous to try and find an alternative route
on the fly. I have more information on this in one of the sidebars
but between two data cards I had the entire area of my trip
covered using Garmin's Road and Rec. After zooming in and looking
around a bit I found some connecting dirt roads that got me
to where I wanted to go.
 Temperatures
have started to drop already. This is partly due to the rain
and the bank thermometer I passed a bit ago said 58 degrees.
Not too cold but I did end up using the jacket liner and a sweatshirt
the entire day.
I got to camp about 18:00 at Lake of the Ozarks SP. Pit toilets
only but it was on a lake and I had the place to myself after
the fishermen left a bit after dusk. The shot of the boat was
taken by just aiming the camera at waist level and the framing
was a fluke. You can tell the shutter speed was pretty slow
though and that they were moving.
When I first got to the park there was a family fishing from
the bank and a girl of about 7 or 8 trying her luck with a cane
pole. Her little brother was about 5 or 6 and kept trying to
take her "good" spots. They each had a couple of small fish
and were having a ball. The parents on the other hand seemed
to have their hands full trying to keep up with the excess,
youthful energy of the children.
The long days make summer a great time to travel and as you
head further north darkness comes later and later. Since I will
be moving into the mountain time zone soon I will be "gaining"
an hour as well. I had planned on pulling my own fishing pole
out once it got dark and everybody was gone but I started reading
and before I knew it I had started to nod off. It wasn't even
dark yet and I was ready for bed.
|
