Day 23: Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park, MO - Summerville, MO (42/150)

It rained all through the night, so I was rather reluctant to get out, get wet, pack my wet tent, and get wet again while cycling. Luckily the rain stopped just after my alarm went off so I could pack my wet tent in dry weather :). During the morning it remained very cloudy, but no rain and around noon it even cleared up and turned out to be a wonderful and sunny afternoon.

In Ellington, the first town on the route, I stopped for some water and supplies. A passing driver asked where I was from and then replied: "Dan wens ik je een goede reis verder!". Though with an American accent it was still strange (good strange) to hear someone speak Dutch for the first time in over three weeks. The driver told me his mother was from Amsterdam, so that's why he was able to speak some Dutch. In the food store I talked to the lady behind the counter who had all kinds of stories (seriously she talked for more than half an hour) but the most interesting was that the hard part of the Ozark Mountains was coming up and that today would probably the hardest day.

Since I was now prepared for the worst, the climbing itself wasn't too bad. Yes there were steep climbs and yes there were lots of them, but they were all (few exceptions) very short, too short to really get tired. Maybe cycling almost non-top for three weeks does make you stronger :P The hilly scenery itself was again extremely pretty, and no dogs this time !

In the food market in Eminence, I ran into Billy Rice, who is taking part in the Transam Bike Race (http://www.transambikerace.com/). Basically they are riding the same route as me, but West to East and then as fast a possible. They were only 2 weeks into the race and the first one had already finished (and Billy was over 2/3 of the way). His bike looks much, much faster and lighter than mine, some 30 lbs including all gear he told me, that's the same as my bike without the 50 lbs of gear on it!. These guys obviously don't camp and hardly sleep, he claimed to be on the bike 20 hours each days. Also he told me that Kansas and Idaho are the worst states to cycle through... hopefully it's not too bad. I wished him the best of luck with his race and set off again. In the future, whenever anyone tells me I'm crazy for doing this, I'll refer them to what these guys are doing and claim that what I'm doing is sort of normal :)

 

At the end of the day I reached Summerville, where I first tried the Youth Center to camp in the back. The guy I spoke to told me they didn't allow that, but the town sheriff, who lived next door, could help me. The sheriff directed me to a small city park (unfortunately no showers) where I'm staying for the night.