I find that I have lost my relationship with time. I no longer have a clue what the time is. We have discovered that breakfast and dinner seem necessary, but lunch can be skipped with no thought at all. We left the car’s clock on Eastern time and let our phones keep track of local time. We wake at sunrise and have coffee and work out before eating breakfast. I am still concerned that eating in restaurants will result in weight gain and a serious lack of vitamins from fruits and veggies so we bought fruit from the grocery story (when we finally found one!).
I wanted to drive today – I really prefer driving through the rural areas, so today was my day. We had a day of picture-taking and enjoying the serene and beautiful drive through the Ozarks. Yesterday I described the terrain as gently rolling, but today we left gentle behind! There were steep ups and downs and dramatic hairpin turns. It was great fun to drive. We started in Rolla with the goal of reaching Joplin before we stopped for the evening.
In Rolla we photographed the ½ scale model of Stonehenge. It was created by the Missouri Science & Technology University students and staff. We parked illegally in a staff lot and took a few quick but fun pix. Then we hit the road. We crisscrossed I 44 to stay on the “outer road.” And our first photo stop was at Devils Elbow. The terrain was fiercely hilly and rocky and the road was very narrow. We couldn’t even pull off when we stopped to take pictures, but we really had the road to ourselves today. The bridge at Devils Elbow looks down on a sharp curve of the Big Piney River where the logs used to jam up because they couldn’t make the sharp turn. It was a very steep drop and the view was breathtaking.
We stopped next in Lebanon at the Library to see their Rte 66 museum display. The local folks have made a wonderful display that moved Dennis to take a short video of a pristine 1938 Buick Phaeton. I was tickled by the huge salt and pepper shaker collection that was donated by one citizen. It started as her mother’s collection and grew when friends traveled and bought the shaker sets as souvenirs. Lots of them came from places along the Mother Road. The library's map collection was truly amazing. We saw one map of “Cloverland” – Michigan’s Upper Peninsula! We also saw propaganda maps that were printed to stir up support for a national “good roads” system – contrasting that need to the building of the Panama Canal (the Canal was seen as a waste of our resources from which citizens did not benefit). We were really glad we stopped there.
We worked our way through some confusing road construction in Marshfield so that we could take a picture of the miniature Hubble telescope in the town square. Since you can see blue sky in the photo, you can tell it is not in space, but it was fun to see. We have commented on the strong pride of place that we have seen in many Missouri towns. Many of the water towers have the high school mascot name along with the town name, i.e., Strafford Tigers. It is great to see the schools as such an important part of the community.
Dennis did a great job of navigating us through Springfield and I paid attention with all my energy! It was wildly busy with lots of highways and 4-lane surface roads. I’ve been unusually cautious since I do not know the local laws. I wanted to turn right on red but I wasn’t sure if MO allowed that – it does – and now I feel more comfortable. But we’re headed into Oklahoma tomorrow and I have to observe and learn their rules. After we left Springfield, we swapped driver and navigator duties and Dennis drove us into Joplin. We did have one long stop when we sat in the car and waited on the “one lane road due to construction.” When it was finally our turn to drive, our line of cars was escorted by a construction truck.
We chose to stay in Joplin today because we spend money wherever we stay and Joplin needs help. It is a vibrant town with lots of events, and we have not seen the tornado destruction. We have seen evidence of a re-greening push to plant trees all over town. We found out that we are here one week too early, though, Octoberfest starts NEXT Thursday!
Traveling this way is an ongoing adventure and meditation on life in America.
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