I awakened at 0430, half an hour before the alarm was to wake me. Everything was loaded in the car except the laptop & the snacks, so after a leisurely breakfast and email check I was off at 0545.
The first tid-bit is this bi-level outhouse on MO-52, betweeen Deepwater & Montrose. This long-standing facility has been modernized in the last few years.
Took a short comfort break at Casey's in Appleton City. The main street is wide, to Western standards, and many downtown buildings are originals. MO-52 is not my usual route, so there were new things to see: a silo tree 5 miles west of App City, a feedlot with very long-horned longhorns, signs to small towns such a Prairie City and Double Branch, and a place with a very ornate gate – and no fence.
I picked up I-49 just south of Butler. Nevada turned out to be almost exactly the same distance from home as it is going via Osceola & Eldorado Springs; Nevada has a car dealer with a giant size bow-legged cowboy sporting six-shooters. South of town, the long standing silo tree east of I-49 has an upstart competitor across the highway. A little further south, the landfill complex is being joined by a veritable Mount Trashmore, dwarfing the old trash ridges.
A QT stop just south of Joplin for $3.04 gas and (you know), the flat prairie country becomes a series of hills and valleys. The Neosho sign reminded me that my great grandfather W.L. Truman credits the Good Lord and the Neosho spring with curing him of measles in 1861 (http://www.cedarcroft.com/cw/memoir/chapter02.html).
This stretch of I-49 is part of a main route from farms to turkey processors. Roadside carnage indicates a few have escaped the cages only to feed the scavengers.
At 200 miles exactly(!), I-49 enters Arkansas - my Subaru's GPS thinks I'm trail hunting. I pass the Prairie Grove turn-off four hours into the trip. As I take the nice open interstate through the Boston Mountains, I think of those poor troops retreating down primitive roads after that December battle.
I finally hit my first congested traffic and first significant precip at the Arkansas River bridge ot Fort Smith – Arkansas DoT seems to discourage zipper merging – the set the cones far in advance of the actual work area. US-71 is a divided highway for almost 20 miles south of Fort Smith.
At 1100, I started looking for a diner. I found the Herox Family Diner in Mansfield, AR. Service was great, and the chicken fried (not 'country fried' ) steak was the thickest I think I've had. Heading south, I passed "Y" City and Acorn. Hanging Dead taxidermy is south of Mena.
I found my HIE at precisely 15 00, 9 hours and 15 minutes after departing home on this 471.9 jaunt (might be a few more miles if I find I need supper after that lunch). Tomorrow looks to be a shorter haul, just 310 miles on decent roads to Lake Charles, where I'll visit my old H.S. best friend.
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