Off at 0555, with a cinnamon roll and glass of milk for breakfast. The temperature is 81 as I pick up I-155 for the 16 mile jaunt past kudzu-covered hills to the Mississippi River and the Missouri line. I pass Hayti and find US-412. The right of way is full of yellow flowers and a small cypress grows in a roadside pond.
This is delta country, which I'll be in for quite a while. I pass rice fields & soybean fields; later I'll see harvested wheat fields and growing corn. On MO-25 I pass a building marked "gin" – some of those supposed bean fields are actually cotton.
I pass through the town of Frisbee, then Campbell (home of the Camels). There's a church sign that reads "Don't condemn people because they sin differently than you do." Just before Poplar Bluff on MO-53, I saw the Little Brown General Baptist Church, causing me to wonder whether the General was a person or a description of theology.
Poplar Bluff has a new bypass/road for commercial development that cut some time off the urban section of the trip. I picked up US-60 there and quickly saw a miscalculation in my plans: I'd somehow omitted about 75 miles from my schedule. Other than that, the trip to Springfield was uneventful – except for the inexplicable traffic jam on I-44 between US-60 and Glenstone exit.
I had planned to stop for brunch & gas near Springfield. Waffle House was crowded & the gas station I intended to patronize posted an outrageous price, so I bought some gas elsewhere and headed north on MO-13, the home stretch. Lunch was a large & delicious hot beef sandwich at Smith's in Collins (cash only!).
As usual for a Sunday afternoon, traffic at the south stoplight in Clinton was backed up over 1/4 mile. I expected this, but decided to brave it rather than cut through town since I needed to stop for milk. I did discover a new shortcut to avoid the delay at the north stop light.
Home at 1333, 392.4 miles for the day, 2215.8 for the trip. I'll try to wrap things up here after I wrap things up at home.
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