Day 32: Fun In The Sunshine

I took my morning slow, knowing nine-fifteen was my pickup time. Joe and Terry packed up ahead of me and pointed their wheels toward Golden City. Then the Sunshine Bike Shop van pulled in and out stepped Alex, who loaded my bike and bags like this was the most ordinary errand in the world, and drove me into Springfield.

At the shop I finally met Kay, the voice from last night’s phone call. The place put the Carbondale bike shops to shame — I half wished I’d had my whole tour serviced there instead. Kay sent me off to browse while Alex worked, so I stocked up on Cliff bars and energy shots, and when the bike came back fixed I reached for my wallet. Alex just shook his head. All of it, free.

Of all the generosity this trip had thrown at me, that one landed hardest. Alex drove me back to Fair Grove, I thanked him more than the situation probably called for, and then it was on with the day — a stop at the gas station for yet more supplies, and finally rolling again around midday. This was the last day Missouri and the Ozarks would have me; almost seventy miles stood between here and the state line.

I cruised over the last of the rollers with the sun obliging me by ducking behind a cloud on every climb, stopping only briefly at each set of services to keep the pace up. Everton amused me on the way through — no scousers in sight, sadly — and toward the end of the day I found myself trapped behind a road mower crawling along at twelve miles an hour with a warning van tucked in behind it. I waited for my moment, found a downhill, and blew past both — only to hit a long climb immediately after. The mower gained on me all the way up, breathing down my neck at the crest, before I dropped it for good on the next descent.

Me vs Mower

The Ozarks held on stubbornly right up until the last minute, then finally let the land go flat — a preview of the Kansas to come. I rolled into Golden City and made for the park, hoping to find the others, and found Terry first, outside the gas station, then Joe waiting at the park itself. A shower, a softball game to watch, some food, and then a night spent sweating through the humidity — I ended up climbing out of the tent and waiting an hour before I could face trying to sleep again. Tomorrow: state number five. I could not wait.

Golden City, MO

Sixty-eight miles by the day’s end, closing in on sixteen hundred for the trip, and not one of them had cost me a cent at that bike shop.